RAF Wittering sits on the edge of the old Roman road network, a flat patch of Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire countryside that has been repeatedly reworked to fit the needs of successive air forces. It is one of the RAF’s oldest stations, and its history reads like a cross-section of British military flying: from the improvisation of the First World War, through the training and expansion of the inter-war years, into the operational demands of 1939–45, and then on into the jet age and the modern support force.
The airfield began during the First World War as an air landing ground used for training and home defence duties. In the 1920s the RAF returned in earnest, building Wittering into a permanent station with the kind of solid, brick-built infrastructure that marked the RAF’s drive to professionalise and standardise its bases. By the early 1930s RAF Wittering had become strongly associated with bomber development and training, and it gained a particular reputation for experimenting with the practicalities of operating larger aircraft, at night and in poor weather, at a time when both were still evolving arts.
In the Second World War RAF Wittering’s work leaned heavily towards training, conversion, and the steady flow of aircrew and aircraft through the system. That does not make it a backwater. Training stations were the RAF’s bloodstream, and the tempo could be relentless. Units arrived, worked hard, moved on, and were replaced, while the station itself remained, quietly absorbing the demands. Wittering also played its part in the layered defence of Britain, not necessarily through glamorous sorties, but through the routine readiness and coordination that underpinned wartime flying at home.
One of the more interesting things about RAF Wittering in wartime is how it sat at the centre of a little cluster of airfields. Satellite sites like Collyweston existed to give the main station breathing space: somewhere to divert to, to disperse aircraft, to handle overflow, and to reduce vulnerability. That relationship mattered. It meant Wittering could keep operating when weather, congestion, or damage might otherwise have choked it. It also meant the area carried an unusually dense concentration of flying activity, with aircraft movement and noise that became part of the local landscape.
After 1945 RAF Wittering continued to adapt. Like many RAF stations it entered the jet age and took on new roles as the service reorganised around speed, nuclear strategy, and then, later, expeditionary commitments. Over time the station became particularly associated with the Harrier force, the RAF’s distinctive vertical and short take-off and landing aircraft that demanded specific training, engineering skill, and airfield arrangements. Harrier operations at Wittering gave the station a sharp, practical identity: it was a place where pilots learned to handle an aeroplane that behaved unlike most others, and where engineers kept a complex, hard-driven fleet ready for whatever tasking was next.
That Harrier chapter also anchored Wittering in the Cold War and post-Cold War years. Harrier units trained there for dispersed operations, rapid deployments, and the kind of flexible air support that became familiar in late twentieth-century conflicts. The station’s facilities, runways, and approach systems evolved with those demands, reflecting the way a long-lived base is shaped less by grand building projects than by continual, often invisible, change.
In recent decades RAF Wittering has become known less as a front-line flying base and more as a centre for support functions, while still retaining flying activity. Its role has shifted towards enabling the RAF, housing units that keep operations moving, including elements focused on engineering, logistics, and station support. That, too, is in keeping with its history. Wittering has repeatedly been what the RAF needed it to be: a training ground, a development hub, a home for specialist flying, and a reliable base with the space and infrastructure to carry a heavy workload.
If there is a single thread through RAF Wittering’s life, it is continuity. Airfields come and go, units re-form and disband, aircraft types rise and vanish, but Wittering remains. It has held onto the unglamorous strength that makes a station matter: the ability to absorb change and keep doing the job. In the end, that is why Wittering deserves attention. It is not only the story of aircraft and squadrons, but the story of an airfield that has survived by staying useful.