RAF Hemswell

RAF Hemswell stands on the Lincolnshire edge, seven miles east of Gainsborough. The airfield began in 1918 as a night landing ground for the Royal Flying Corps and grew into a bomber station by the late 1930s. Its wartime runways saw Handley Page Hampdens of No. 61 Squadron lift off on 19 March 1940 to drop the first Bomber Command bombs on German soil. Polish crews later flew Vickers Wellingtons from the station, and 122 aircraft were lost on operations. A nearby overflow airfield at RAF Ingham hosted Polish squadrons while Hemswell’s runways were laid. The station’s Cold War years brought Thor nuclear missiles under dual-key control with the United States Air Force. Three launchers stood ready from 1959 until 1963, and the site served as headquarters for five missile dispersal locations across Lincolnshire. After the Thor force stood at maximum alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the airfield became an operational conversion unit for the cancelled TSR-2 strike aircraft. Recruit training followed, then glider schools for Air Training Corps cadets until the RAF left in 1974. Today the former technical site and married quarters form part of Hemswell Cliff parish. Civilian warehouses and retail units occupy the old hangars, while the Sergeant’s mess, Officers’ mess and station cinema remain among the surviving buildings. The Sergeant’s mess now houses a business centre, and the water tower still marks the skyline. The married quarters built for RAF families line quiet streets near the village. Cliffe House, once the officers’ mess, stands at the abandoned overflow airfield at RAF Cammeringham, where a brick control tower and quonset huts recall its wartime role.