Royal Air Force Stations in Lincolnshire

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RAF Hemswell / Harpswell

Airfield Code: HL; Grid reference centred on: SK 947 912






The Royal Flying Corps opened this flying field as RFC Station Harpswell in 1916 and used as a night landing ground. Nos. 199 and 200 Training Squadrons were established at the airfield. Shortly after the end of WWI the site returned to farmland.
A new RAF Station, to be known as Hemswell, was built in the 1930s to a design for Bomber airfields and was one of a number of permanent bases being built to accommodate the then rapidly expanding Royal Air Force. Concrete runways weren't added until much later. Bomber Command was formed in 1936 and on 31st December 1936, Hemswell was opened as one of the first airfields within No.5 Group. 144 Squadron arrived in February and 61 Squadron in March 1937, equipped with Avro Anson and Hawker Audax aircraft. Later new Bristol Blenheims and Handley Page Hampdens arrived on the station. 61 squadron were the first to drop bombs on German soil in WW2.
From July 1941 to February 1944, Hemswell, now in No.1 Group, with its satellite airfield at RAF Ingham, were home at various times to 300, 301 and 305 Polish Air Force Squadrons, who were equipped with Wellingtons. 199 RAF Squadron equipped with Wellington's operated from Ingham from February to June 1943. They all played a very important part in the bomber offensive of that period and suffered heavy losses. The last of the Polish Squadrons moved from Hemswell to Ingham in late 1943 to enable concrete runways to be laid and so bring the airfield up to Class A Standard.
Hemswell reopened in January 1944 and No.1 Lancaster Finishing School used the base until, with the arrival of 150 & 170 Lancaster Squadrons in November 1944, Hemswell resumed operations against the enemy. The last hostile operation from Hemswell was on 25th April 1945, the target being the SS Barracks at Berchtesgaden.
Hemswell continued in operational flying use by RAF Bomber Command until as late as 1956. The last flying squadrons had departed in January of that year but RAF Hemswell was then established as an RAF Bomber Command missile unit, maintaining and operating three Thor Intermediate Range Ballistic Nuclear Missile launchers of No 97 (Strategic Missile) Squadron RAF that remained at Hemswell from December 1959 to May 1963. RAF Hemswell finally closed 1 April 1974. Much of the station remains intact.
Helmswell stood in for RAF Scampton in the ground-based filming of the 1954 film "The Dam Busters".

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