Winthorpe Airfield
By Howard Heeley
Grid Ref: Sheet 121; SK825565; 2 miles NE of Newark
Opened: September 1940
Squadrons: 300 (Mazovia) Sqn; 301 (Pomerania) Sqn; 455 Sqn (dispersed only); 1661 HCU; 1331 HTCU; 984 company RASC Air Despatch; Central servicing Development Unit; Allocated to USAF as hospital – not enacted.
Aircraft: Battle; Wellington; Manchester; Lancaster; Halifax; Stirling; Spitfire; Hurricane; Martinet; Lancaster; Dakota; Horsa gliders
Nationalities: Polish; Commonwealth
Things of note: Major 5 Group training base for bomber crews. Wings for Victory parade held in Winthorpe village in 1943. Post World War II used as a drop zone for various Swinderby based units. The airfield was deactivated in summer 1959; subsequently the former wartime runways have been used by a number aircraft being delivered to the Newark Air Museum collection.
Current status: Major part of the runway site now owned by the Newark & Notts Agricultural Society; with some runways and taxiways still in existence but not operational. The accommodation parts of the airfield now form part of Coddington village. Aviation connections are maintained on the site by the Newark Air Museum, which is also the home for several aviation memorials related to the airfield, its former squadrons and personnel.
(This information was originally published in the 2011 booklet “Aviation in Nottinghamshire”, which was produced by the Newark Air Museum thanks to a Local Improvement Scheme grant from the Nottinghamshire County Council. Photographs sourced from the Newark Air Museum Archive.)