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.
Overview
RAF Worksop was a wartime airfield in north Nottinghamshire, positioned close to key rail and industrial routes and within reach of the dense air station network of the East Midlands and Lincolnshire. In WW2 it is best remembered as a support and training location – part of the ‘infrastructure behind the raids.’ That meant maintenance, storage, relief landing capacity and the constant churn of training flights that turned recruits into competent aircrew. Stations like Worksop rarely appear in dramatic headline histories, yet they were essential to keeping operational airfields supplied with aircraft, spares and trained personnel.
Wartime role
Worksop’s wartime logic was practical: disperse resources, reduce vulnerability, and provide capacity. The RAF learned quickly in 1940 that concentrating aircraft and equipment on a few airfields created tempting targets. As a result, the service expanded a lattice of smaller sites that could receive aircraft for inspection, holding and preparation before onward movement. Worksop fitted that pattern. It could receive aircraft coming off repair lines or arriving from factories, hold them in dispersed areas, and send them on once required. It could also absorb diversion landings and training movements when larger stations were fogged in or busy launching and recovering bomber waves.
Units, squadrons and aircraft
Worksop’s unit profile is therefore most plausibly described through the kinds of units that operated from such fields: Maintenance Units (MUs) responsible for storage and issue; repair and salvage elements; communications flights; and visiting training detachments. Aircraft seen at Worksop would have varied widely depending on the moment – trainers such as Tiger Moths, Oxfords and Ansons; fighters such as Spitfires or Hurricanes passing through; and bombers such as Wellingtons or the occasional heavy type in transit. That variety is itself a clue: it suggests a ‘throughput’ station rather than one tied to a single operational squadron.
- Maintenance and aircraft holding activity (aircraft receipt, storage, preparation, issue)
- Communications and station flights (liaison and administrative flying)
- Visiting training detachments (circuits, navigation and continuation flying)
- Typical aircraft seen in this ecosystem: Tiger Moth, Oxford, Anson, Wellington; plus transit Spitfire/Hurricane and other types as required
What happened here
On a day-to-day level, the work at Worksop was about tempo and order. Aircraft arrived, were logged, inspected, fuelled, and parked in dispersed locations. Ground crews preserved engines, prevented corrosion, checked systems, and prepared machines for onward ferry flights. Meanwhile, training aircraft would come and go on circuits or short cross-countries. In wartime Britain this ‘background’ activity was continuous. It was also risky: moving aircraft between units and airfields involved inexperienced ferry pilots, uncertain weather, and frequent mechanical issues. The accident and incident records associated with many support stations show just how demanding this apparently routine work could be.
Legacy
RAF Worksop’s WW2 significance lies in its enabling function. It formed part of the chain that moved aircraft and people from factories and training schools to operational squadrons. In a war measured in sortie rates and replacement capacity, that logistics and training backbone mattered as much as the famous combat stations. Understanding Worksop therefore means looking past the question ‘what raids launched from here?’ and asking ‘how did this place keep other raids possible?’ – a perspective that often reveals the airfield’s real value.