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RAF Waltham – officially RAF Grimsby – was a Lincolnshire Bomber Command station whose identity was shaped as much by local usage as by official paperwork. Servicemen and residents commonly called it ‘Waltham’ after the nearby village, even though the RAF designation was Grimsby. Operational from November 1941, it initially served as a satellite to RAF Binbrook, supporting Vickers Wellington operations before becoming a Lancaster base as the bomber war escalated.
The airfield’s wartime story begins with preparation. Flying at Waltham had earlier civilian roots, but the Air Ministry requisitioned the site in 1940 and constructed concrete runways – among the first in north Lincolnshire – to accommodate the heavy aircraft needed by No. 1 Group, Bomber Command. This was not a glamorous front-line fighter station; it was a workhorse base built around the unglamorous essentials: wide dispersals, hardstandings, fuel and bomb storage, and the administrative machinery that could support sustained night operations.
Three squadrons define the station’s operational record. No. 142 Squadron arrived in November 1941, and the base’s early phase was closely linked to Wellington operations and the satellite relationship with Binbrook. In December 1942 No. 100 Squadron arrived with Avro Lancasters, marking the airfield’s shift into the heavy bomber era. The first operational sortie by 100 Squadron from Waltham took place on the night of 4/5 March 1943, when Lancasters carried out mine-laying (‘Gardening’) along the coasts of occupied Europe – dangerous missions that combined long sea crossings, low-level approaches, and intense flak risks. Two Lancasters were lost on that first operation, an immediate reminder of the cost of entry into the Lancaster war.
On 25 November 1943 No. 550 Squadron formed at RAF Waltham from ‘C’ Flight of 100 Squadron. Equipped with Lancasters and part of No. 1 Group, 550 Squadron began operations immediately, participating in raids on major German targets such as Berlin and also attacking industrial cities like Leipzig and Frankfurt. The squadron’s short association with Waltham is important: it shows how bomber stations could act as ‘incubators’ where new units formed, trained up, and then moved to other bases once operationally ready.
For the ground community, Waltham was a landscape of night work – engine runs, bomb loading, refuelling, and frantic repairs as aircraft limped home with battle damage. For aircrew, it was briefing rooms filled with route maps and flak intelligence, followed by cold, exhausting hours over the North Sea and Germany. The airfield closed some weeks before the surrender of Germany; by then the runways were worn, priorities had shifted, and the hangars were used by No. 35 Maintenance Unit for storage before the site returned largely to agriculture.
RAF Waltham’s WW2 significance lies in its concentrated Lancaster period and its role within the wider Lincolnshire bomber system: a station that carried the heavy bomber burden, produced a new Lancaster squadron, and contributed to the relentless, high-attrition work that defined Bomber Command’s later war.