Sutton Veny, Deverill Road
SUTTON VENY - DEVERILL ROAD: U S Army base airstrip
Note: The first picture was obtained from Google Earth ©. The local area and area views are from my Google Earth © derived database.
Operated by: U S Army
Location: Just W of Sutton Veny village, about 2nm ENE of Longbridge Deverill and roughly 2nm SSE of Warminster town centre
Period of operation: Late 1943 to mid 1944
NOTES: It appears the 83rd Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion moved into this facility in mid 1943, and had moved out in mid 1944 to take part in the D-Day landings. In the year or so leading up to the D-Day landings the totally inadequate road system in England was pretty much unusable, especially south of the Midlands, being clogged up with vehicles very slowly making their way to supply the embarkation points.
Therefore, senior people required to organise this invasion at short notice, very often had no option but to be flown in. Similarly urgently needed documents had to be sent either by motorcycle, or if really urgent, by air. The same applied to British military forces. Trying to discover the wide variety of sites used by these lowly, but essential, communication types of aircraft is something of a labour of love to say the least. But, some progress has been made.
A NOTE OF THANKS
We have Mr Clive Davidson, the CFI at Tiger Moth Training at HENSTRIDGE to thank for pointing out this location. In April 2023 I had contacted Clive about another matter, and in the course of the conversation he mentioned this site.
On a personal note, I would like to mention that Clive really is one of the best flying instructors anybody could wish to fly with. When I first decided to learn to fly, with Delta Flight at LEAVESDEN, starting in September 1988, they were offering a fixed price PPL course, subject to being evaluated beforehand. Clive was my instructor, and, this is absolutely true, during the course of that first flight, he taught me to aileron roll the Slingsby T.67B, G-BONU, on the 30th September. Still, even today, one of my treasured memories flying a light aircraft.
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