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 Bardney in Lincolnshire was a Bomber Command station whose operational life was short but intense. Opened on 13 April 1943, it became a home for Lancaster squadrons at the heart of the strategic air offensive. Lincolnshire’s dense concentration of wartime airfields earned it the nickname ‘Bomber County’, and Bardney was one of the stations that turned that label into reality.
The first resident unit was No. 9 Squadron, which brought Avro Lancasters to Bardney and joined the relentless cycle of night operations. From this landscape of concrete runways and perimeter tracks, crews took part in the wider campaign against German industry, transport and military infrastructure. Bardney also saw the formation of other Lancaster units, including No. 227 Squadron and No. 189 Squadron, reflecting Bomber Command’s continuing expansion and the need to generate fresh crews as losses mounted.
Operational flying from a Lancaster station was defined by routine and risk. A typical day included briefings, weather updates, intelligence summaries, aircraft preparation, engine runs and last-minute loading, followed by the tense wait for aircraft to return. When the bombers did come back, the airfield’s medical staff, crash crews and ground trades were immediately involved – treating wounded men, recovering damaged aircraft, and turning survivors around for the next operation. In this respect Bardney was not just a launch point but a complex machine that kept the bomber force functioning.
One distinctive late-war feature was the presence of the Bomber Command Film Unit, formed and based at Bardney in the final stages of the conflict. Film crews documented aspects of operations and life on the station, creating a visual record of a campaign that was otherwise experienced in darkness and secrecy. This is a reminder that wartime airfields were also places where history was consciously recorded, not only fought.
The airfield closed in July 1945, but Bardney’s story did not end there. In the Cold War era, the site was associated with the deployment of Thor intermediate-range ballistic missiles, a striking example of how the same landscape could move from piston-engined bombers to nuclear-era deterrence. Today, the wartime airfield is part of the broader Lincolnshire story: a place where Lancaster crews trained, launched, and returned – often at terrible cost – while the station and its people played their part in the air war over Europe.
Bardney’s Lancasters operated as part of a wider Lincolnshire-based system of bomber stations where aircraft, crews and ground staff were constantly moved to balance losses and maintain output.
The local landscape of flat farmland made for practical airfield construction and easy approaches, but it also left stations exposed – hence the emphasis on dispersal and camouflage.
Today, the story of Bardney is often preserved through memorial activity and research groups that map the station’s wartime footprint and record the names of those who served.
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.