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 Saltby was built in rural Leicestershire as Britain expanded its wartime flying infrastructure. By 1941-42 it was in use as a concrete-runway training and support station, set out on the classic bomber-airfield triangle with dispersed hardstandings around the perimeter track. Its early wartime character was shaped by aircrew training and conversion work that fed the front line: aircraft and crews arrived, learned their trade under pressure, and then moved on to operational squadrons.
A key early resident was No. 14 Operational Training Unit, which used twin-engined Vickers Wellington bombers. OTUs existed to bridge the gap between basic flying training and combat, teaching crews to operate as a team at night and in poor weather, to navigate over long distances, to practise bombing and gunnery, and to handle the realities of multi-engine flight. Training at places like Saltby was demanding and often dangerous, with accidents a frequent, if tragic, consequence of the pace of war.
As the conflict shifted toward the build-up for the liberation of Europe, Saltby’s role broadened into airborne operations support. The airfield hosted heavy glider maintenance and servicing elements alongside RAF maintenance units, reflecting how the RAF’s transport and glider forces required specialised ground support for towing aircraft, glider assembly, and rapid repair. This was the machinery behind Britain’s airborne ambitions: without skilled ground crews, gliders and tugs could not be generated in the quantities required.
Saltby is particularly associated with the arrival of the United States Army Air Forces’ 314th Troop Carrier Group. Flying Douglas C-47 Skytrains, the group operated its troop carrier squadrons (including the 32nd, 50th, 61st and 62nd) from the station. Troop carrier groups trained hard for large-scale formation flying, night navigation, and precision drops, and then carried those skills into operations that supported the Normandy landings and subsequent airborne and resupply missions across North-West Europe. These aircraft also hauled gliders on training sorties and on operations, a task that demanded steady flying at low speed and great discipline in turbulent weather.
After 1945, like many wartime stations, Saltby declined in military importance as the RAF contracted and rationalised its estate. Today the landscape still carries the imprint of its wartime plan – runway alignments, perimeter traces and surviving structures – while the site has long been known for its peacetime flying activity, with gliding ensuring that the airfield remains a place where people still learn to master the air.
For researchers and visitors, RAF Saltby can often be understood through the surviving pattern of its runways, perimeter track and dispersal points. Even where buildings have vanished, aerial photographs and ground traces can reveal the technical site, the former station entrance, and the ‘domestic’ camps where personnel lived. These physical clues help connect the local landscape to the wider wartime system of aircrew generation, logistics and operations.
As with many troop carrier bases, Saltby’s wartime activity was not confined to combat missions. Much of the station’s output was training: repeated practice drops, formation circuits, and glider-towing sorties that built reliability. These routines were essential – airborne operations had little margin for error – and they explain why stations like Saltby were so heavily used in 1944-45 even when they were away from the front line.