History

RAF Hemswell has a long and distinguished history. The first base was opened here towards the end of the First World War. In 1918, the Royal Flying Corps used it as a night landing ground. Called RFCS Harpswell, after a nearby village, it was home to two night flying training squadrons. The site was returned to its former use as farmland in June 1919.

It was in the years leading up to the Second World War that RAF Hemswell was opened. The land was purchased in 1935, and the new airbase was opened on New Year's Eve 1936. The rapidly expanding Bomber Command needed the base and Hemswell was initially the home for No.5 Bomber Group, and from 1941 No.1 Bomber Group. Among the aircraft stationed here were Hawker Hind and Audax, Avro Anson and the British Blenheim.

During the war years, RAF Hemswell became a standby landing field for the iconic Avro Lancasters, from their major base at RAF Scampton. During the war a total of 122 bomber aircraft and their crews were lost on operations from Hemswell, including 38 Handley Page Hampdens, 62 Vickers Wellingtons and 22 Avro Lancasters.

The station became home to 300 and 301 Polish Squadrons, flying Vickers Wellingtons, in 1941, and remained an important base of operations throughout the conflict. One of Hemswell's more famous residents was Wing Commander Guy Gibson, who led the Dambusters raid. After a Public relations tour of the US, he returned to operational duty at RAF Hemswell, as Squadron Commander of No.150 Pathfinder Squadron, as well as assuming duties as temporary Station Commander. Gibson's De Haviland Mosquito crashed on 19 December 1944 in the Netherlands, killing him and his navigator. He was just 26 Years Old.

Avro Lincoln

After the end of the war, Hemswell still continued as a busy airfield, its poersonnel and aircraft involved in the repatriation of prisoners-of-war, and air-drops of supplies during the relief of Holland and the Berlin Blockade. Bomber Command continued to use the station untill 1956, after which it became a Fighter Command missile unit, playing its part during the tense times of the Cold War.

When the TSR 2 project was cancelled in 1965, Hemswell's operational life drew to a close. It was decommissioned as a military base in 1967. The buildings are mostly still intact, and the site is now used as an industrial and retail park.