Blakehill Farm
BLAKEHILL FARM: Military aerodrome
Note. Pictures by the author. In the first picture dispersal areas can also be made out.
Military user: RAF Transport Command 46 Group
233 & 437 Royal Canadian Air Force Sqdns (C-47 Dakotas)
11 & 16 Glider Servicing (Horsas)
Location: 2nm SW of Cricklade
Period of operation: 1944 to 1952
Runways: 06/24 1828x46 hard 13/31 1280x46 hard
01/19 1280x46 hard
NOTES: Presumably an airfield constructed initially to serve the D-Day invasion programme? I also believe that airborne forces departed from here for the ill-fated Operation Market to capture the road bridge at Arnhem in The Netherlands. This aspect of the airborne operation is often erroneously referred to as Operation Market Garden which in fact was a combined operation. Opreration Garden being the combined British and U.S. Armies land-based assault force which was making its way across from the D-Day landings.
frank skull
This comment was written on: 2018-02-13 15:01:32As a 12 y.o. living in broad hinton c43 I spent hours on the Marlborough downs on the hill above Wick Down near the triangulation pillar where a D.Z. was marked out and Dakota aircraft from 233 Squadron practised air drops with different coloured parachutes with wicker baskets, some of which were well wide of the mark and i rode with members of 47 air despatch who had a jeep and trailer to pick them up, often two miles away on Overton hill, the soldiers had a wooden shed as a mess room complete with Tortoise stove and each day arrived with a large box of sandwiches, corned beef, cheese etc and each night when they returned to base we spent a pleasant hour or so toasting the remnants,
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