Full WW2 control tower details and photos for this wartime airfield are coming soon. Please check back later as this is work progress. If you would like to contribute information or photos please get in touch.
RAF Bitteswell in Leicestershire opened in June 1941 and quickly developed into a versatile wartime airfield that blended operational training with the engineering and production work that sustained the RAF. Initially a grass airfield, it was upgraded in 1943 with hard runways, reflecting the increasing weight and tempo of wartime flying as Bomber Command expanded and training units required more dependable infrastructure.
During the war Bitteswell hosted a range of flying training and operational training units. One important activity was beam-approach and instrument training, supporting the wider RAF move toward safer bad-weather and night operations. Flights using aircraft such as the Airspeed Oxford helped to calibrate and teach the radio-assisted approaches that reduced accident rates and improved operational reliability – an unglamorous but crucial advance in wartime aviation.
Bitteswell also acted as a satellite and support field for Operational Training Unit work. OTUs trained crews for specific roles and aircraft types, and in Bomber Command’s case this could include live bombing practice, navigation exercises, and even participation in operational sorties when manpower and circumstances demanded. Training of this sort created a constant churn of aircrew and aircraft through the station, with instructors and ground staff working to turn novices into usable crews as quickly and safely as possible.
Alongside training, Bitteswell developed an industrial character. A factory was built next to the airfield in 1943 to assemble aircraft, linked with production at Baginton in Coventry. This created a workflow of assembly, test flying and acceptance that continued well beyond the war. Such activity shows how some wartime airfields were effectively ‘production airfields’, where the boundary between factory and station blurred and where test pilots, fitters and inspectors were as important as operational aircrew.
This mixture of training and engineering made Bitteswell a place of constant movement: trainees learning circuits, instructors checking standards, and newly assembled or repaired aircraft taking to the air for trials. In the wider wartime system, that meant more trained crews and more serviceable aircraft reaching operational squadrons at the front. Bitteswell’s later post-war use for aircraft assembly and jet engine development built on the same foundation, but its WWII identity remains that of a hardworking Midlands airfield where training, technology and production overlapped to support the wider air war.
Concrete runways and improved lighting reduced limitations on training sorties, allowing more predictable scheduling and enabling greater use during winter months.
Industrial activity at the edge of the airfield created an unusual mix of personnel – factory workers, RAF staff and test pilots – each contributing to the same output of serviceable aircraft.
Bitteswell’s story is a good reminder that ‘operational flying’ was only one part of a much larger system where assembly, testing and technical training were equally decisive.
For visitors and researchers today, the most rewarding approach is to combine surviving site evidence (perimeter tracks, dispersal loops, building footprints) with squadron ORBs, logbooks and local testimony, which together recreate how the station worked day to day.