Southam
SOUTHAM: Military aerodrome
Note: Both of these pictures were obtained from Google Earth ©
Military users: RAF Flying Training Command
RLG [Relief Landing Ground]
Later: Care & Maintenance
Location: S of A425, 0.5 nm E of Southam
Period of operation: 1940 to 1944 (Another reliable record states 1945)
Runways: ENE/WSW 732 grass NW/SE 549 grass
NOTES: Used as a RLG by No.9 EFTS at ANSTY and also as an RLG by CHURCH LAWFORD.
In late 1944 just 69 RAF personnel were recorded as being stationed here. Does anybody know how much flying activity took place in that year?
Mr Graham Frost, a great friend of this 'Guide', found this information: "By 1944 there was a slow decline in the need for new pilots and on 21 March 1944 all flying ceased at Southam, and Ansty, their parent station and No 9 EFTS closed down. The Southam site was subsequently used by a number of RAF Airfield Construction Units as a storage facility for plant and equipment required for use in Normandy after the 'D-Day' landings."
"On 18 December 1944 it was transferred to the Ministry of Works. For a period in the 1950's a former RAF Squadron Leader Waller lived on the airfield site and flew his own Tiger Moth from the airfield."
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