USAF Burtonwood Air Base

jagdpanther44 · #1 (**permalink**) March 16th, 2008, 05:52 PM

Yesterday afternoon I took a trip to the former USAF wartime airbase at Burtonwood near Warrington, Cheshire. Apart from a few hangars, not much remains of this once huge facility. During WW2 the base comprised of some 1,800 buildings and 1,800 personnel and was the main supply and maintenance base for the US airforce in Europe.

The base took delivery of new bombers and fighters coming from the US before distributing them to other bases around the UK. Repair work as well as maintenance and modifications to aircraft was carried out here. Between 1943 and 1945 alone the base processed approximatley 11,500 aircraft. It remained operational as a supply depot until 1993 when it finally closed, but not before it had played its part in the first gulf war by supplying enormous amounts of equipment to the forces fighting out there.

Today the base is a shadow of its former self with the main runway now covered by the M62 Motorway and much of the remaining site developed in to housing estates. There has been a campaign running for a number of years to try and preserve the remaining hangars as a memorial, let's hope it is succesful.

I'm planning to pay another visit to the site in the coming weeks to get a better look at the other hangars, watch this space...

Martin Bull · #2 (**permalink**) March 16th, 2008, 07:46 PM

Interesting stuff - Burtonwood was BAD 1 ( Base Air Depot ) with Warton as BAD 2.

There was an unusual control tower at Burtonwood which was sadly demolished a few years ago.....

jagdpanther44 · #3 (**permalink**) March 16th, 2008, 11:38 PM

I remember the control tower well, it is the the main feature of the base that has always stuck in my mind. The tower was demolished by the famous steeplejack Fred Dibnah in 1988.

ghost_of_war · #4 (**permalink**) March 17th, 2008, 02:25 PM

Hope they make it a memorial - that would be great.

jagdpanther44 · #5 (**permalink**) March 17th, 2008, 08:21 PM

I also came across this small building which was situated next to the perimeter fence of the base. Does anyone know what it may have been used for?

A machine gun post maybe?

Martin Bull · #6 (**permalink**) March 17th, 2008, 08:29 PM

Ouf - I should know this one....

I've seen structures like this at other less-strategic RAF sites ( balloon-barrage sites etc ) and I think it's a pintle to mount a twin-Lewis or Vickers as a rudimentary AA defence....?

bigfun · #7 (**permalink**) March 17th, 2008, 09:17 PM

I just did a search on this but I couldn't find anything on the perimeter defenses, I'm really curious as to what that is, with that concrete pintle there?

S.Vestae · #8 (**permalink**) March 17th, 2008, 10:58 PM

Hallo all,

Thanks for this info, interesting....

Sebastien

ghost_of_war · #9 (**permalink**) March 18th, 2008, 05:37 PM

I believe it was used for an AA emplacement....