RAF Stratford Airfield Site

RAF Stratfords original name until 1942, was RAF Atherstone and was a satellite of RAF Wellesbourne Mountford.
The Airfield now is farmland, but there are many things to find. I have now walked nearly all the airfield and its dispersed sites. The runways can be still be seen and also most of the perimeter track. The one B1 hangar still exists and the base of a T2. A Motor Transport (MT) ramp, petrol instillation (aviation), parts of the control tower, battle HQ, two pill boxes, bomb storage, machine gun test butts, several air-raid shelters. RAF Stratford was used by 22 Operational Training Unit (OTU) mostly with Vickers Wellington twin engined bombers.

They came under No. 91 Bomber (OTU) Group RAF Abingdon for administration and A satellite to RAF Wellesbourne Mountford.
1 x T2 hangar.
1 x B1 hangar.
27 x Heavy bomber dispersals.

Air Ministry Site Plan, this is all I have of the plan. We walked in an clockwise direction of the airfield.

The Stanton air-raid shelter escape and highlighted is a screw picket post.

Two huts.

Motor transport
Part of the MT section.

Local servicing could be carried out here on all the camps vehicles.

History : Stratford became a satellite of RAF Wellesbourne Mountford July 1941 then RAF Pershore between December 1942 to March 1944 and closed November 1944.

Latrine 9026/41.

B1 Hangar.

B1 hangars were often run by a civilian organisation, the Ministry of Aircraft Production. This was to ease the work load off the RAF ground crew, to repair severely damaged aircraft.

After it was re clad.

50ft wide perimeter track.

History : as an OTU, it trained pilots & crew to fly night bombers, in Vickers Wellington's Mk's I, III & X.

North west/south east runway, it would have been 150ft wide.

Perimeter track, Battle HQ & pill box defence.

Pill Box.
The construction of this pillbox & its shape is slightly different from the regular designs. For a start wooden boards were used as shuttering and also it seems not so thick as others. There is also a protected entrenched entrance.

Pill box Inside Turnbull mount. Turnbull mounts were not exclusively used for mounting machine-guns, Brens, Lewis, water cooled Brownings and Hotchkiss could all be used. I suspect in fact that Bren guns were the most common weapon mounted (simply because an infantry division held 1,262 Bren guns against only 40 Vickers MMG's). They were only fitted when on alert. Turnbull mounts were issued from 1941 onwards, so those found in C1940 pillboxes were fitted later. Each mount need 4′ 9″ of space between the loophole and the back (baffle) wall to allow the gunner room to position himself behind the mount. Pillbox Study Group.

Turnbull mount.

Small ammunition storage.

Pillboxes odd shape.

Air-raid shelter.

The escape hatch end.

Stratford upon Avon and Midland Junction.

A strong I beam and concrete roof.

Original lighting.

Bomb store road looking back.

This is how it would have looked. I have superimposed a Nissen hut fuzing point. The gray line to the left is where the road to the component store.

Small arms ammunition store.

Small arms ammunition store.

Small arms ammunition store. View from the earth traverse.

Small arms ammunition store.
Entrance into the SAA store through the earth travers.

Site of the T2 Hangar.
I have superimposed a hangar on the picture.

The door runner has been removed but three original drain covers remain.

Seen from this angle the NFE store shape can be seen very well.

Light aircraft tiedown.

A Ryman 1943.
I wonder who he was.
From A taste of 22 OTU.
If an airman was to fly in bombers, he would be posted to a Bomber Command Operational Training Unit (OTU) for ten weeks. Here, the training was more serious and the flying much more dangerous than previously experienced, to some extent because of the dangerous mix of the novice crews and 'clapped out' aircraft that had previously flown operationally. He was now training as a member of a bomber crew and they would learn to fly operationally on an actual warplane. About 10% of Bomber Command's losses occurred while training.