CONINGSBY
This airfield was first scheduled in a 1937 expansion scheme plan but slow progress in the compulsory purchase of the land and associated problems delayed the work for two years. It was originally planned as a permanent station with Type C hangars but these were switched for two of the more utilitarian Type J. Much of the camp, with access to the A153 road, had been constructed before war began. Located immediately south of the small town of Coningsby, eleven miles northeast of Sleaford, the airfield was grass-surfaced when it was opened late in 1940.
The first Bomber Command squadron to be based at the station was No. 106, which arrived from Finningley with Hampdens in February 1941 and was involved chiefly in minelaying operations for the first few weeks. In March, No. 97 Squadron arrived with Manchesters from Waddington making its first raid with the type on the night of April 8/9, 1941. No. 97 had a difficult time with its aircraft, engine problems severely restricting operations, and in July and August 1941 the Manchester was grounded and the crews borrowed No. 106 Squadron's Hampdens for operations. However, when No. 106 converted to the troublesome machine in the summer of 1942, it faired no better. In January 1942, No. 97 started to receive Lancasters but as the heavier aircraft tended to rut the airfield surface the squadron moved out to Waddington in March. No. 106 began to get its Lancasters in May 1942 but it remained at Coningsby throughout the summer months before moving to the hard surfaces at Syerston in September that year. During Manchester operations from Coningsby, 17 aircraft were lost.
Coningsby was then closed for the building of concrete runways on a £200,000 contract. These were aligned 08-26, for the main of 2,000 yards; 04-22 at 1,400 yards and 13-31 at 1,550 yards. Some 36, pan hardstandings had been put down round the airfield during the first year of the war but there was no perimeter track and two clusters, reached by asphalt tracks, were to the east across the Stub Hill road. In the course of the construction of the new perimeter track, a few pans were destroyed and seven loops added as replacements. A B1 hangar was erected for the Ministry of Aircraft Production on the west side of the technical site and later three Type T2s were put up behind the westernmost J hangar for No. 54 Base Maintenance. Additional accommodation at three dispersed sites, one WAAF, east of Coningsby village, raised the station maximum to 2,196 males and 384 females.
Coningsby re-opened in August 1943 with the Lancasters of the famous No. 617 Squadron moving in from Scampton. Involved in specialist operations, No. 617's activities while at Coningsby were somewhat limited. The most notable operation was the disastrous low-level raid on the Dortmund-Ems canal when five out of the eight Lancasters despatched failed to return. Because the squadron required more dispersals, in January 1944 it exchanged stations with No. 619 at Woodhall Spa.
In February 1944, the airfield became a two-squadron base with the arrival of No. 61 Squadron from Skellingthorpe while repairs were being carried out at that station. No. 61 moved back to Skellingthorpe in April and No. 619 was moved to Dunholme Lodge.
Coningsby had been selected as the base for two squadrons specialising in target marking for precision night attacks which No. 5 Group was to pursue. To this end, two of its Lancaster squadrons that had been transferred to No. 8 Pathfinder Group many months earlier, having acquired the necessary skills, were to be returned. These were Nos. 83 and 97 Squadrons, the latter having been previously based at Coningsby, to where both units moved in April 1944. They remained on the airfield for the remainder of the war when, by VE-Day, a total of 175 Bomber Command aircraft had been lost in operations flown from the airfield. Seventeen of these were Manchesters, 57 Hampdens and 101 Lancasters.
Nos. 83 and 97 Squadrons continued in residence right up until November 1946 having re-equipped with Lincolns during the summer. They were replaced by Nos.109 and 139 Squadrons with Mosquitos until these moved out to Hemswell in 1950, the station where the Lincolns had gone. At the end of the year Coningsby received Washingtons, a complement of eight in each of four squadrons, but after three years the Washingtons gave place to Canberras. The following year these departed so that the main runway, 08-26, could be rebuilt and lengthened to 2,740 yards. When the station re-opened two years later it again hosted Canberras until the first V-bomber units arrived in 1961. The Vulcan squadrons left late in 1964 and thereafter Coningsby had no resident flying units for two years until the base was selected for a Phantom Operational Conversion Unit and, later, actual Phantom squadrons.
During the early 1980s, Coningsby was the first RAF station to have hardened aircraft shelters erected. In 1985, a Tornado OCU was set up as a training base for Tornado F3 fighters. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which possesses the only airworthy Lancaster in Europe (the other is in Canada), has been based at this station using the B1 hangar since 1976.
