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 Polebrook in Northamptonshire was one of the archetypal Eighth Air Force heavy bomber bases, designated USAAF Station 110. Built as a Class A bomber airfield, it gained a famous identity through the 351st Bombardment Group (Heavy), which arrived in April 1943 and flew Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses against strategic targets in occupied Europe and Germany. The group’s tail marking – ‘Triangle J’ – became synonymous with Polebrook and remains a strong visual symbol in memorial culture.
The 351st operated as part of the 94th Combat Wing and was composed of four squadrons: the 508th, 509th, 510th and 511th Bomb Squadrons. From Polebrook, these units joined the long, demanding arc of the daylight bombing campaign. Their early missions included attacks on Luftwaffe airfields, and as the offensive matured they struck deeper targets: industrial plants, rail marshalling yards, armaments factories and oil infrastructure. Raids such as those on ball-bearing production at Schweinfurt exemplify the strategic logic of the campaign – disrupting key industrial bottlenecks – while also illustrating the brutal tactical challenge of reaching defended targets before long-range escort was fully effective.
Life at Polebrook combined industrial-scale organisation with constant risk. B-17s required careful servicing of engines, turbochargers, propellers and complex defensive systems. Armourers and bomb handlers managed large tonnages of ordnance, while intelligence staff compiled target folders and assessed results. On operations, aircraft took off in streams, assembled into formations and crossed the North Sea under strict radio discipline. Combat damage, forced landings and losses were part of the pattern. The airfield’s dispersal layout and perimeter track were designed to keep aircraft separated and to allow rapid turnaround; the ground environment was as essential to mission success as the crews in the air.
Polebrook’s wartime significance is also emotional. For local communities, the presence of hundreds of American airmen brought cultural exchange and shared sacrifice. For the USAAF, stations like Polebrook became temporary homes where friendships formed quickly, and where the absence of a crew after a mission could be felt across the base. In 1944-45, the emphasis of bombing shifted increasingly towards transportation networks and oil, reflecting the changing strategic situation, and Polebrook’s B-17s participated in that late-war pressure that helped collapse German mobility and production.
Today, Polebrook is remembered through surviving structures, memorials and the enduring ‘Triangle J’ identity. It is a key site for understanding how the Eighth Air Force operated from rural England and how a single station fitted into a vast system of wings, groups, squadrons and specialised support units.
WW2 units, roles and aircraft:
- USAAF Station 110 – Eighth Air Force
- 351st Bombardment Group (Heavy) – Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress; tail mark ‘Triangle J’
- Bomb squadrons: 508th (YB), 509th (RQ), 510th (TU), 511th (DS)
Polebrook’s story also includes the way bomber bases became ‘little Americas’ in rural England, complete with clubs, chapels and social events. That cultural footprint remains part of the site’s memory today and is one reason why the ‘Triangle J’ identity still resonates. It marks not only aircraft tails, but a wartime community that lived at high tempo under continual loss risk.