The Wartime Memories Project

- RAF Harrington during the Second World War -


Airfields Index
skip to content


This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.


If you enjoy this site

please consider making a donation.




    Site Home

    WW2 Home

    Add Stories

    WW2 Search

    Library

    Help & FAQs


 WW2 Features

    Airfields

    Allied Army

    Allied Air Forces

    Allied Navy

    Axis Forces

    Home Front

    Battles

    Prisoners of War

    Allied Ships

    Women at War

    Those Who Served

    Day-by-Day

    Library

    The Great War

 Submissions

    Add Stories

    Time Capsule

    TWMP on Facebook



    Childrens Bookshop

 FAQ's

    Help & FAQs

    Glossary

    Volunteering

    Contact us

    News

    Bookshop

    About


Advertisements











World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII 1939 1945

RAF Harrington



   Construction of Harrington Airfield by the 826th and 852nd Engineer Battalions of the US Army, started on the 11th July 1942. The airfield had initially been constructed for use by a B-17 Flying Fortress Bomb Group, but the group had been diverted to North Africa to support Operation Torch. It was therefore taken over as a satellite station for training the bomber crews of the nearby RAF 84th Operational Training Unit at Desborough who mainly operated Wellington bombers.

In 1944, Harrington was selected for the Carpetbagger Operations by the Eighth Air Force's Special Operation Group. These operations were to deliver supplies and OSS agents into occupied Europe to support local Resistance units. The advance echelons of the 36th and 406th Bomb Squadrons moved into Harrington on the 25th March 1944. These squadrons were to form a new Bomb Group known as the 801st Provisional Bomb Group (H). The airfield remained in their use until they returned to America in October 1945.

The RAF used Harrington as a supply and storage depot until the late 1950`s when was selected to become one of the RAF's Thor missile sites. After the Thor site was no longer required, in 1965, the buildings were demolished, runways and most of the roads and taxiways were removed. The airfield once again returning to agriculture. Today, the foundations of some buildings can still be seen around the site of the airfield but the only remaining original substantial WW2 buildings left standing are on the former administration site. The Carpetbagger Aviation Museum is now housed in part of the original Operations Building at the airfield's administration site. The Northants Aviation Society Museum occupies the site of the former finance hut.

 

7th June 1944 Agents dropped in France

19th July 1944 Special Duties aircraft lost

28th February 1945 Attack Made


If you can provide any additional information, please add it here.



Those known to have served at

RAF Harrington

during the Second World War 1939-1945.

  • Banks John Francis. F/Lt.

The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed, please Add a Name to this List



The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.

Announcements



  • The Wartime Memories Project has been running for 24 years. If you would like to support us, a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting and admin or this site will vanish from the web.
  • 28th March 2024 - Please note we currently have a huge backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than 263784 your information is still in the queue, please do not resubmit, we are working through them as quickly as possible.
  • Looking for help with Family History Research?   Please read our Family History FAQ's
  • The free to access section of The Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers and funded by donations from our visitors. If the information here has been helpful or you have enjoyed reaching the stories please conside making a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting or this site will vanish from the web.
    If you enjoy this site

    please consider making a donation.


Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the War? Our Library contains an ever growing number diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text.



We are now on Facebook. Like this page to receive our updates.

If you have a general question please post it on our Facebook page.


Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to WW2. We would like to obtain digital copies of any documents or photographs relating to WW2 you may have at home.

If you have any unwanted photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them. The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted. World War 1 One ww1 wwII second 1939 1945 battalion
Did you know? We also have a section on The Great War. and a Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations.



Want to know more about RAF Harrington?


There are:3 items tagged RAF Harrington available in our Library

  These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War.


F/Lt. John Francis Banks 192 Squadron

John Banks qualified as an air bomber on 19th of June 1943. He studied Navigation and map reading in Anson planes at AFU Wigtown to 6th of January 1944, the transferred to No 84 OTU at Harrington where he was flying Wellington bombers with pilot F/O Clarkson. No 84 OTU moved to Desborough on 3rd of March 1944 John and his crewmates joined 192 Squadron at Foulsham on the 7th of April 1944, they flew sorties to Bay of Biscay Channel, the Western Approaches, over the North Sea, Dutch coast, French coast and the Frisians in a Wellington Bomber. He completed one operational tour of 40 sorties. John transferred to 221 Group on the 1st of June 1945 flying Dakotas from Rangoon over Burma. In October he joined 47 Squadron flying Mosquitos as a navigator and was demobbed in 1946.








Recomended Reading.

Available at discounted prices.



Bomber Bases of World War 2, Airfields of 1st Air Division (USAAF) Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire

Martin Bowman


Covers the units who flew the legendary B-17 Flying Fortress. This book looks at the history and personalities associated with each base, what remains and explores the favourite local wartime haunts where aircrew and ground crew would have gone. It covers museums and places that are relevant.







Links


















    The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items.

    The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.

    If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.



    Hosted by:

    The Wartime Memories Project Website

    is archived for preservation by the British Library





    Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
    - All Rights Reserved

    We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.