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RAF Edgehill, often identified with Shenington Airfield on the Oxfordshire-Warwickshire border, opened in October 1941 as part of the RAF’s expanding training system. It was built to support Bomber Command’s Operational Training Units (OTUs), the vital bridge between basic flying schools and front-line squadrons. In an air war where crews were being generated at industrial scale, OTU airfields like Edgehill were the places where ‘qualified pilots’ became ‘operational crews’.
The station functioned as a satellite of RAF Chipping Warden and was used by units such as No. 21 OTU, operating Vickers Wellingtons. Wellingtons were ideal for advanced training because they were twin-engine aircraft with enough complexity to teach navigation, radio procedures, formation discipline and the workload of multi-crew flying. Edgehill also saw associated types such as Miles Martinets (often used in towing and target duties) and, at times, Hurricanes, reflecting the way training stations borrowed aircraft for specific instructional tasks or for local defence and practice.
For a trainee crew, Edgehill’s daily routine was intense. Daylight sorties built formation and navigation skills; night sorties taught crews to fly by instruments, manage blacked-out airfields and execute approaches using limited aids. A large part of OTU training was repetition – circuits, cross-country routes, simulated operational profiles – because the aim was not merely competency but reliability under stress. Weather in the Midlands could rapidly degrade, and learning to continue safely in poor conditions was part of the syllabus.
Edgehill is also notable for its connection to early jet development. In 1942 the airfield is associated with test flying of the Gloster E.28/39, Britain’s first jet aircraft, during a period when secrecy was paramount and suitable airfields were needed for experimental work. That brief but remarkable chapter links Edgehill’s training identity with a technological revolution: while OTU crews were learning to fight the current war, a new propulsion era was already being proven in the background.
The physical site matched its purpose: three hard runways, a small technical area, and temporary accommodation for the personnel required to run an OTU satellite. It was functional rather than grand, designed to do a job and do it quickly. In that sense, Edgehill represents a hidden foundation of wartime air power. Thousands of crews passed through OTUs, and their survival – and the success of their squadrons – depended on the quality of training delivered at places like this.
The airfield closed in 1945, but its wartime story remains a useful lens on the RAF’s training ‘machine’: unglamorous, relentless, sometimes dangerous, and absolutely essential to sustaining operations in the air.
Because OTU flying was so frequent, Edgehill’s runways and approaches were effectively classrooms. Crews learned to manage emergencies, practice forced landings, and recover aircraft with damaged systems – skills that often made the difference between loss and survival when they later faced flak and night fighters over Europe.
The station’s story is also a reminder of scale. Edgehill did not need to be famous to matter: its contribution was multiplied by every crew that graduated and every operational tour that those crews then completed.