Culture, History | Posted on May 21st, 2024 | return to news
Dorset airfield to mark 80th anniversary of D-Day
A gathering is to take place at Tarrant Rushton on Saturday 1 June to mark the airfield’s involvement in D-Day 1944.
June marks the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of occupied Europe and a former Dorset airfield’s vital role in which three waves of Halifax bombers took off – towing wooden gliders carrying soldiers bound for Normandy – is to be marked.
The gathering to remember and honour those people who flew from, and served at, the Royal Air Force station at Tarrant Rushton takes place close to the site of the former airfield’s main gate on Saturday, 1 June from 12.30pm with gates opening at 10am.
The commemoration venue is the former airfield’s stone memorial at ‘Windy Corner’ on the road to Witchampton – at postcode DT11 8SB – in the shadow of a black wartime aircraft hangar.
The first British troops to land in Normandy in the first few minutes of D-Day, Tuesday, 6 June, 1944, flew in six Horsa gliders from Tarrant Rushton late on Monday, 5 June, 1944, to seize a vital bridge, near Caen, later named ‘Pegasus Bridge’ in honour of the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry troops.
D-Day, 1944, saw two major lifts of Halifax bombers towing troop-carrying Horsa and the tank-carrying Hamilcar gliders bound for Normandy – 26 Halifaxes and their gliders taking off in the early hours of Tuesday, 6 June, 1944, with another 32 Halifaxes and gliders taking off in the early evening of D-Day.
With the coming of peace, Tarrant Rushton airfield became the home to Sir Alan Cobham’s pioneering aviation research and manufacturing company Flight Refuelling in 1947, the company leaving the airfield in 1980 after which four years of demolition followed. Elements of the former Flight Refuelling, later Cobham PLC, continue in business in Dorset – under new management – at Bournemouth Airport and in Wimborne.
The poignant Tarrant Rushton airfield D-Day 80th anniversary commemoration on the afternoon of Saturday, 1 June is being organised by the Friends of Tarrant Rushton Airfield Memorial, a newly formed voluntary non-profit-making community group.
Friends of Tarrant Rushton Airfield Memorial chairperson Anne Gardner said: “Royal Air Force, Glider Pilot Regiment and Army veterans, former Flight Refuelling airfield staff, their families, friends and anyone with an affinity with the former airfield – and its remarkable history across almost 40 years – are invited to attend and bring chairs.
“Tarrant Rushton airfield has a remarkable and important history in times of both war and peace. The courage of its Halifax aircrews, glider pilots and airborne troops should be remembered and commemorated. The bravery and sacrifice of the men who failed to return after flying from the airfield should never be forgotten,” added Anne whose late father served in the Glider Pilot Regiment during 1944.
Opening in May, 1943, Tarrant Rushton airfield was built to train bomber and glider pilots for the D-Day, Arnhem and Rhine Crossing operations as well as the dropping of secret agents from the Special Operations Executive in occupied Europe, from southern France to the Low Countries and Norway.
Flying as low as 60 feet to avoid radar and German night fighters, Halifax crews from Tarrant Rushton also took the Allies’ secret war of subversive supply, troops and arms dropping in darkness deep into occupied Europe and Scandinavia.
Friends of Tarrant Rushton Airfield Memorial secretary Bob Seymour said: “Between April 1944 and May 1945, Tarrant Rushton’s No 298 and No 644 Squadrons flew 2,284 missions into occupied Europe, from southern France to Norway.
“Twenty-seven Halifax bombers were shot down and more than 160 aircrew lost their lives – British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealanders and men from other Commonwealth countries. Also killed were glider pilots, airborne troops and the Special Operations Executive secret agents dropped behind enemy lines,” added Bob whose late father Robert was a Halifax navigator with No 298 Squadron at RAF Tarrant Rushton during and took part in D-Day.
The former Tarrant Rushton airfield is now a huge windswept 300-acre field of waving corn under the shadow of Badbury Rings between Wimborne and Blandford.
Back in 1944, the hilltop airfield above the village of Tarrant Rushton was one of the Royal Air Force’s most important airfields in the secret war against the stranglehold on mainland Europe and home to 3,000 men and women from across the country and the Commonwealth.
All that remains now is a small strip of the main concrete runway, two black aircraft hangars put to agricultural and business use as well as the perimeter track once used for taxiing bombers and gliders but now a public footpath.
With its three large runways in the shape of an ‘A’, four large hangars and 300 buildings, Tarrant Rushton was built by Wimpey and took just nine months to complete at a cost of £1 million, more than £37 million in today’s money.
In the poignant words of a 1944 glider pilot, the late Bernard Halsall: “Tarrant Rushton was our home. It was the base from which we flew and hopefully returned. It became the centre of our lives. I’m sure its memory is held in high regard by all those who were privileged to serve there.”
For more information – or to register interest in attending – email tarrantrushtonam@gmail.com.
The Tarrant Rushton airfield memorial postcode is DT11 8SB.
To find out more, visit the Friends of Tarrant Rushton Airfield Memorial website at raftarrantrushton.org.
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