Qualla: RAF Honington

RAF Honington: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

At dawn on 4 September 1939, the day after Britain declared war on Germany, fourteen Wellington bombers of IX Squadron took off from a Suffolk airfield and flew east. Their target: German warships at Brunsbüttel, near the mouth of the Elbe. It was the first RAF bombing raid of the Second World War. Two of those Wellingtons did not come back. The airfield they had left, opened only two years earlier, has been continuously operational ever since. RAF Honington has watched the entire arc of British military aviation from biplane bombers to Force Protection drones, and it has hardly ever been quiet.

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RAF Honington: Built for War

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Construction began at Honington in 1935. The contractor was John Laing and Son, the same firm that would later build sections of the M1 motorway and Coventry Cathedral. The station opened on 3 May 1937, just as Britain began rearming in earnest. Bomber Command moved squadrons thr...

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RAF Honington: Two Brave Men in a Burning Wellington

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In May 1941, a Wellington returning from a night sortie tried to land at Honington with its wheels still retracted. It skidded sideways into the main bomb dump and burst into flames. The trapped aircrew were going to burn alive. Group Captain J. A. Gray, the station commander, an...

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RAF Honington: Americans and Mustangs

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In June 1942 the United States Army Air Forces took over the station and upgraded it to Class A bomber base specification, calling it Station 375. Eventually the 364th Fighter Group flew P-38 Lightnings, then P-51 Mustangs from Honington. They escorted B-17s deep into Germany, st...

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RAF Honington: Buccaneers and the Cold War

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

After the war, Honington went through several reinventions. RAF Transport Command used it to support the Berlin Airlift in 1948-49. A 9,000-foot concrete runway was laid down in 1956, long enough for jet bombers. From 1969 the station became home to Hawker Siddeley Buccaneers, lo...

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RAF Honington: Force Protection

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In June 1994, the RAF Regiment depot moved here from RAF Catterick in Yorkshire. Honington became, and remains, the central hub for protecting RAF bases worldwide. Over 1,500 personnel work here. Three field squadrons of the RAF Regiment train and deploy from the station. The RAF...

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