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RAF Enstone, in Oxfordshire near Chipping Norton, was a wartime satellite airfield built primarily to support operational training. Opened in September 1942, Enstone functioned as a relief and overflow base for No. 21 Operational Training Unit, whose main station was at Moreton-in-Marsh. That relationship defined Enstone’s wartime character: not a headline combat base, but a working component of the RAF’s crew-production system.
No. 21 OTU trained crews for Bomber Command, and Enstone’s runways and dispersals were used heavily by Vickers Wellingtons. The Wellington was ideal for OTU work: twin engines, multi-crew procedures, and enough performance to simulate the navigation and handling demands of operational aircraft without consuming scarce front-line types. At Enstone, crews practised circuits, cross-country navigation, formation elements, bombing exercises and, crucially, night flying. Night work was the point where training started to feel like war – limited visibility, blacked-out landscapes, tight radio discipline and the challenge of judging height and speed by instruments alone.
Satellite fields mattered because OTUs were busy and sometimes congested. Spreading training across multiple airfields reduced mid-air risk, eased runway pressure, and allowed flying to continue when one station’s surfaces or weather made operations difficult. Enstone’s role was therefore partly about safety and partly about efficiency: it helped keep a steady flow of trained crews moving onward to Heavy Conversion Units and then into front-line squadrons.
The station’s wartime environment also illustrated a common training paradox. OTUs were not ‘safe’ simply because they were not over enemy territory. Training accidents could be severe – engine failures on take-off, navigation errors, weather-related crashes – and the high number of hours flown meant that risk accumulated. Ground crews and instructors worked to reduce those hazards through disciplined maintenance, careful briefings and standardised procedures, but the pressure to maintain output was relentless.
Enstone’s training phase ran until April 1944, after which its role changed. Later in the war and immediate post-war period, further flying activity continued with other training detachments, reflecting how useful a well-built airfield remained even as operational priorities shifted. Like many OTU satellites, Enstone also developed a strong local connection: personnel were billeted in surrounding villages, roads carried constant RAF traffic, and local communities lived with the soundscape of repeated circuits and engine runs.
Today Enstone’s survival as an active flying site adds an extra layer of meaning. It remains an airfield in use, but its Second World War story is the story of training as a strategic weapon: a place where crews practised until they could be trusted to fly heavy aircraft at night, over hostile territory, and bring both machine and crew home again.
From a heritage perspective, Enstone is valuable because it represents the ‘middle layer’ of the RAF system. Front-line squadrons could only keep operating if training stations maintained throughput, and Enstone’s steady, repetitive flying was one of the hidden engines that kept Bomber Command staffed.