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 Fairoaks, on the edge of Chobham Common near Woking in Surrey, was never a ‘classic’ heavy bomber base with long concrete runways and massed dispersals. Its wartime significance sits in a different category: a small aerodrome close to London that was adapted for the needs of a nation at war – communications, training, ferrying, and the everyday movement of people and aircraft that kept the RAF and wider Allied system connected.
Before 1939, Fairoaks was already an established civil flying site. That pre-war foundation mattered because wartime Britain often relied on existing aviation infrastructure, especially in the crowded south-east where land was tight and airfields were already embedded in a landscape of towns, roads and industry. Once war began, the aerodrome’s proximity to major commands and to aircraft factories and depots in the region increased its usefulness, even if it did not host famous front-line squadrons for long periods.
Small airfields like Fairoaks typically supported light aircraft operations: communications flights, staff movements, liaison tasks, and short training sorties. In wartime practice that could include pilots and aircrew maintaining currency, instructors conducting checks, and aircraft being repositioned between maintenance sites, assembly units and operational stations. The work was often repetitive but strategically important. Every urgent dispatch flight that arrived on time, and every aircraft that was ferried safely to its next destination, reduced friction in a system that was operating under extreme pressure.
Fairoaks also sat under the shadow of the Battle of Britain and the subsequent air defence campaign. Although it was not one of the most famous sector stations, the fact it lay in the defended region meant it existed inside a world of blackouts, air raid warnings, aircraft noise, and constant vigilance. Ground precautions – camouflage, dispersal discipline and security – were part of daily routine for any airfield in reach of German raiders. Even a small aerodrome could be attacked if spotted, and the presence of aviation fuel and aircraft made every station a potential risk point for the surrounding community.
Like many smaller wartime stations, Fairoaks’ story is best told through the concept of ‘support to operations’. The RAF’s air war depended on a web of nodes: not only bomber and fighter bases, but also communications fields, relief landing grounds, and sites that could accept diversions or handle local flying when bigger stations were overloaded. Fairoaks sat within that web. It offered runway space, basic services and a convenient location for a range of duties that would otherwise have consumed capacity at more heavily tasked airfields.
After 1945, the aerodrome’s post-war life returned strongly to civil flying, becoming well known for general aviation and flying clubs. That continuity is part of its interest: it connects pre-war, wartime and post-war aviation culture in one place. For visitors, RAF Fairoaks represents the quieter side of wartime air power – where the result was not a combat report, but the steady, reliable movement and training that helped the wider system function.