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 Stoney Cross, in the New Forest of Hampshire, was built as a heavy-duty wartime airfield and became best known for its American fighter presence in the run-up to D-Day. The New Forest area hosted multiple airfields and military installations, and Stoney Cross added runway capacity and dispersal space in a region that became a staging area for the liberation of Europe. Its location allowed aircraft to reach the south coast quickly while remaining sheltered by the forested landscape.
The station’s most notable resident was the USAAF 367th Fighter Group, part of Ninth Air Force tactical air power. The group operated the Lockheed P-38 Lightning – a twin-engined fighter valued for range, speed and firepower. The 367th’s fighter squadrons (commonly recorded as the 392nd, 393rd and 394th Fighter Squadrons) trained and operated from Stoney Cross during the intense spring and early summer of 1944 as the Allies prepared to launch Operation Overlord. P-38 groups were used for a mix of air superiority, escort, and – crucially – fighter-bomber attack missions against railways, bridges, radar sites and other targets that shaped the invasion battlefield.
Stoney Cross also illustrates the practical side of invasion preparation. Tactical air forces needed to generate repeated sorties, often in poor spring weather, and to train pilots in navigation at low level, formation discipline, and weapons delivery. Ground crews at Stoney Cross maintained aircraft in dispersed forest-edge hardstands, refuelling and rearming quickly while also dealing with the challenges of mud, damp, and wear from high-tempo flying. Operations sections coordinated routing, timing, and the tight coordination required between fighters, medium bombers and ground forces in the emerging combined-arms approach.
After D-Day, many tactical units moved to advanced landing grounds on the continent to keep within range of the fast-moving front. That pattern helps explain why Stoney Cross’s most intense combat association is concentrated around 1944: it was a staging airfield – one of the ‘launch pads’ that enabled the initial phases of the liberation. Later, like many southern stations, Stoney Cross supported training, movement and occasional detachments as the RAF and USAAF reorganised.
- Primary wartime role: invasion-era tactical fighter base and staging airfield in southern England.
- Key unit association: USAAF 367th Fighter Group (Ninth Air Force), P-38 Lightning; squadrons commonly associated include the 392nd/393rd/394th Fighter Squadrons.
- Operational themes: pre-invasion interdiction strikes, escort and air superiority tasks, rapid sortie generation and staging for continental deployment.
RAF Stoney Cross’s WWII significance is that it anchors the New Forest into the story of Allied tactical air power: the P-38s, the build-up, and the high-tempo missions that helped clear the way for the armies crossing the Channel.
This station also contributed by reducing bottlenecks and improving safety: spreading traffic across the network, providing diversion capacity, and sustaining training throughput when weather or congestion threatened to slow the wider system.
This station further contributed by reducing bottlenecks and improving safety: spreading traffic across the network, providing diversion capacity, and sustaining training throughput when weather or congestion threatened to slow the wider system.