Wattisham Airfield (ICAO: EGUW)

 airport, Second World War 1939-1945, military

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Former RAF Wattisham - USAAF Station 377

Wattisham Airfield (ICAO: EGUW) is the biggest centralised operational Army Airfield in the UK, located next to the small village of Wattisham in Suffolk, England. It is home to 3 Regiment Army Air Corps and 4 Regiment Army Air Corps. They are part of 16 Air Assault Brigade, whose headquarters is at Colchester. They fly one of the most advanced military helicopters in the world, the Westland WAH-64 Apache as well as the Westland Lynx.

Originally RAF Wattisham, this was one of the four W stations which hosted No. 2 Group's squadrons at the beginning of the war. Wattisham was an expansion scheme project on which work began in 1937.

Located in the parishes of Wattisham, Ringshall and Great Bricett, two miles northeast of the little Suffolk town of Bildeston, the main contractor involved in construction was John Laing & Son Ltd. It was not an easy site to work due to the high clay content of the soil that required much underdraining. The camp of permanent buildings lay near the village of Great Bricett and its construction brought about the closure of the road to Ringshall. A road from Bricett to Wattisham that ran across the landing ground was also closed and eliminated. Four Type C hangars formed an arc adjacent to the bombing circle.

Officially opened in March 1939, the station received Nos. 107 and 110 Squadrons from Harwell and Waddington respectively. These resident squadrons were in action on the second day of hostilities losing half the Blenheims despatched in an attempt to sink enemy warships near Wilhelmshaven. As with most Blenheim stations, the attrition rate were very heavy during the spring and summer of 1940 and a total of 61 aircraft were lost by Nos. 107 and 110 while flying from Wattisham.

No. 107 left in May 1941 when sent north to Leuchars to aid Coastal Command. Its place was taken by No. 226 Squadron, which had left its Battles in Northern Ireland and was retrained to fly Blenheims. No. 226 left in December for Swanton Morley where it was to convert to Bostons, its Blenheims being taken over by a re-formed No. 18 Squadron. The remaining original Wattisham squadron, No. 110, left its Blenheims at Wattisham when its personnel were sent to the Far East in March 1942. No. 18 Squadron was disbanded in March only to reappear from Scotland in May but in August it was packed off to West Raynham preparatory to leaving for North Africa. This marked the end of Bomber Command operations from Wattisham which had seen 118 Blenheims fail to return or crash, the highest loss of Blenheims from any station.

During the 1940-41 period, at least 30 asphalt pan hardstandings were put down on the west and north sides of the airfield. On June 4, 1942, Wattisham was listed for upgrading to Class A standard as a USAAF bomber base and work started on laying runways. In October it was also identified as the site of an air depot. However, a crisis in the airfield building programme saw work temporarily halted on the runways. In the event, this work was not restarted as the airfield was now not required for a bomber station, ultimately housing a USAAF fighter group, the 479th, equipped first with P-38s and then P-5ls, while the depot was utilised for fighter servicing, modification and repair. The three runways eventually laid down at Wattisham were 11-29 at 1,400 yards, all concrete, and 16-34 comprising 350 yards of concrete and 1,050 yards of turf. The main 06-24 had a mixture of 567 yards of concrete and 1,433 yard of steel matting. A concrete perimeter track was linked to 19 existing hard pans to which 39 loops were added. Other pan hardstandings were destroyed during development of the airfield. Additional domestic sites with Nissen huts were constructed in Great Bricett parish giving accommodation for up to 1,709 men. The depot area, official name Hitcham, was built in Nedging Tye on the south side of the airfield during 1943, its access track having 17 loop hardstandings. There were four T2 hangars.

Wattisham was handed back to the RAF on December 15, 1945. The station was in care and maintenance for a time until it was taken over by Fighter Command in October 1946, which based Meteor squadrons there for a few months. In April 1947, the station was again closed for flying while hard runways were completed and other building work undertaken. Fighter squadrons did not return until October 1950, Meteors giving way to Hunters in 1954 followed by Javelins and Lightnings. Wattisham's final days as a fighter base were with agile if noisy Phantoms. The RAF vacated the station in 1992 and after much additional building work the Army made Wattisham its major helicopter base with as many as seven squadrons in residence at any one time.