Hunsdon
HUNSDON: Military aerodrome (Later microlight airfield - see seperate entry)
Military users: WW2: RAF Fighter Command 11 Group
Forward Airfield, night fighter 515 Sqdn (Boulton Paul Defiants later Bristol Beaufighters)
140 Wing RAF Second Tactical Air Force
21, 29, 85, 151, 410 & 418 (RCAF) 464 (RAAF) and 487 & 488 (RNZAF) Sqdns (DH Mosquitos)
3 Sqdn (Hawker Typhoons)
Location: SE of Hunsdon village, E of the B180. About 3nm NW of Harlow town centre and 4nm ESE of Ware
Period of operation: 1941 to 1947
Microlights: 1990s mainly? Also listed as used in 2004 and 2011
Runways: WW2: 08/26 1600x46 hard 03/21 1326x46 hard
Microlights: 08/26 grass (In 2014 it appears a 03/21 runway was also being used)
NOTES: Barely known today in WW2 HUNSDON had in late 1944 some 2240 RAF personnel plus 276 WAAFs on station making it a significant RAF aerodrome in its day.
THE RAID ON AMIENS PRISON
It is here where one of the most daring low-level precision bombing raids took off at 10.50 on the 18th February 1944 to attack and bomb Amiens prison using Mosquitos. A programme on BBC2 in October 2011 revealed that the official reason for the attack, released to the British public many months later is untrue. However, nobody has been able to unearth the ‘real’ reason.
It remains a mystery although some maintain two very important Allied Intelligence officers had been captured and sent to Amiens prison. Did this trigger the attack? Indeed, it appears that even those responsible for ordering the attack are still unknown although MI.6 is strongly suspected. Another reason given is that a large amount of French Resistence people were due to be executed.
It was a remarkable raid in that the prison walls had to be breached without incurring injury to the prisoners.
Leading it was Grp/Cptn. Percy Pickard, who had become famous as the star of the earlier 1941 propaganda film, ‘Target for Tonight’. His navigator was F/Lt. John Broadley RNZAF. The mystery deepens because Pickard had no experience of low level attacks, and had just been given ten hours training at HATFIELD. The participating squadrons were 21 Sqdn. RAF, 464 Sqdn RAAF and 487 Sqdn RNZAF.
Pickard and Broadley both died when their Mosquito HX922 was shot down by a Focke-Wulf FW.190 which shot off their tail. Some claim this was because Pickard elected to circle the target to make certain of the success of the attack. This was a common enough practise, although immensely dangerous, for leaders of bombing raids.
ECM and 515 SQUADRON
515 Squadron are notable because they were one of the first, if not the first (?), to have ECM (Electronic Countermeasures) equipment installed, and indeed, using this equipment was their main task.
As pointed out several times elsewhere in this Guide the RAF in WW2 especially had an obsession about continually moving most squadrons around. Although for various reasons moving a squadron would often be a necessity, as a general policy it was obviously counter-productive to the war effort and certainly disruptive to the overall operational efficiency of the squadron, I have yet to find an explanation of any sort as to why this was continuously happening.
One explanation, which I do not find at all convincing even if it is correct, is that the powers that be thought that by doing this military personnnel on the Station would not be able for forge links with the local population and thereby compromising secrecy. On reading many contemporary accounts it would appear that many locals had a pretty good idea of what was going on within days of a squadron arriving.
A TYPICAL AIRFIELD?
As a general rule WW2 RAF airfields had the capacity to house either one or two squadrons, depending on the airfield size and facilities available. The typical Fighter Command and Bomber Command Squadron comprising three Flights of twelve aircraft. Here at HUNSDON, so far at least, I have found six squadrons based here, (there may well have been more), all flying Mosquitos.
Having got a squadron settled why on earth did the RAF High Command invariably move them elsewhere? Quite often to another airfield in the same or an adjoining County! It would seem a ridiculous policy to pursue when for most of the early WW2 period the outcome was far from assured.
More notes: Regarding microlight activity I found AAIB accident report: EW/C2004/07/02 in which HUNSDON is described as “a disused airfield to the north of Harlow”. HUNSDON was also mentioned in an earlier AAIB report EW/C95/10/5 in 1998 but without any details. See also AAIB report EW/G2010/04/16.
We'd love to hear from you, so please scroll down to leave a comment!
Leave a comment ...
Copyright (c) UK Airfield Guide
