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 Earls Colne, in Essex, was a ‘Class A’ bomber airfield created at speed as Britain geared up for the intensifying air war. Although planned for RAF Bomber Command, it is best remembered for its USAAF and airborne-forces chapters. The station opened in May 1943 with the standard heavy-bomber layout: three concrete runways, dispersals, hangars and the familiar perimeter track that allowed aircraft to be parked and serviced away from the main taxiways.
Its first major operational tenants were American. In late May 1943 the 94th Bomb Group arrived briefly with B-17 Flying Fortresses. That short stay mattered because it shows how the Eighth Air Force was still ‘settling’ in East Anglia and the Home Counties, shuffling groups between new bases as infrastructure came on stream and operational tempo rose. Within weeks, the airfield became the home of the 323rd Bomb Group, flying Martin B-26 Marauders. The B-26 force was at the sharp end of a developing American medium-bomber doctrine: fast, compact formations attacking airfields, marshalling yards and coastal targets under heavy flak and, early on, limited escort.
Earls Colne then evolved again, becoming strongly associated with airborne operations and transport. Units such as Nos. 296 and 297 Squadrons brought in aircraft (including conversion types used for towing and dropping) that supported the build-up of Allied airborne capability. Alongside this, the presence of a communications flight linked the airfield into the wider planning and command network that sat behind major operations. In practical terms, an airfield like Earls Colne was a toolkit: one month a bomber base, the next a hub for moving men, equipment and messages at speed.
Airborne preparation gave the station a very different atmosphere from a pure bomber base. Training flights, towing practice and dropping drills repeated until crews could perform them in darkness, bad weather and under threat. The ground side also changed: specialist equipment for towing, parachute packing, vehicle movements and staging became as important as bomb trolleys and armourers’ bays. Even when not launching headline missions, the station’s work fed directly into Allied readiness for the period when airborne forces would be committed at scale.
By war’s end the airfield had already built a layered identity – American medium and heavy bomber activity, then increasing involvement with transport and airborne forces – before moving into post-war civilian and industrial use. That ‘multi-role’ story is one of its historical strengths. Earls Colne is a reminder that the air war was not only about famous squadrons and raids, but about adaptable infrastructure: airfields that could be reassigned quickly to the task that mattered most at that point in the campaign.
If you walk the area today, the wartime footprint is still readable in the geometry of the perimeter track and dispersals. That layout helps explain the airfield’s adaptability: once the concrete was poured and the servicing points built, different aircraft and units could rotate through with minimal delay, keeping the wider Allied plan moving.