Bovingdon Airfield

92nd Bomb Group (Heavy) Including the 327th Squadron Organizes, constructs and operates the first 8th USAAF CCRC Combat Crew Replacement Center at Bovingdon England. More..

Today, two of the orginal three runways still exist but the hangers have been replaced by HM Prison 'The Mount' opened in 1988. Several leisure activities are enjoyed on parts of the airfield, including the Saturday market. Bovingdon village was visited by many famous people during the '40s and '50s, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, son Elliott Roosevelt as well as Captain Clark Gable, Colonel James Stewart, William Holden. In July, 1943, Bob Hope came to Bovingdon to entertain the men and women stationed here. His troupe consisted of singer/actress Frances Langford, guitarist Tony Romano, comedians Jerry Colona and Jack Pepper (a picture exists on the wall of the Green Dragon). Although Glenn Miller was a frequent visitor along with his USAAF Band, his fatal flight was made from Twinwood Farm (Bedford) on the 15th December 1944.

Forum

I am a member of the Bovingdon Bunch. We are gathering photos of the base during the time we were blessed to have been stationed at RAF Bovingdon. I will be sending you some pictures I have of the base during 1960-1962 (including some during filming of The War Lover. Here are a couple pics of me - Then and now.

We have a yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bovingdon/ The Yahoo Group has been running for about two months now and is "owned" by Jim Walsh (Jimthecanoeist@msn.com). Jim was at RAF Bov from 1959-1962.

Bill Schneider

Regarding the photo from Dick Gassman of him sitting on the tail of a wrecked aircraft, the aircraft was not a Royal Air Force aircraft. G-AKCC was an Avro Tudor 5 that belonged to William Dempster. It crashed in fog on October 26 1951 returning from Castel Benito.

I spent many happy days in the 1950s as an ATC cadet visiting Bovingdon to fly with either of the 2 Royal Air Force Squadrons. These were Fighter Command Headquarters Communication squadron and Coastal Command Headquarters Communication Squadron. There were also several civil Operators using Handley Page Hermes and Avro York aircraft. There were often visiting USAF and USN aircraft such as C123s, B26 and R4D-8 aircraft as well as numerous C47s of the resident USAF squadron.

Many of the Royal Air Force Officers who flew from Bovingdon were much decorated World war 2 veterans and we considered it a great privilege to fly with them.

To my certain knowledge, Prince Phillip flew from there and so did Sir Anthony Eden. One aircraft that flew from Bovingdon survives at Aldershot were it is on display at the Airborne Forces Museum. It is Royal Air Force Dakota KP208 which dropped paratroops at Arnhem in World War 2.

Jeremy F. Howard

My name is Dick Gassmann. I was with the US Air Force and stationed at Bovingdon from 11/50 to 11/52. I was not with the US transport Sq. Rather I was with the 11th Communication Sq. We were attached to the Transport Sq for housing and food, but otherwise led our own life.

We were at the transmitter site building across a couple fields from the barracks. We were the radio voice for HQ 3rd AF in Ruislip. They had the operators and we had the transmitters. We only had about 12 or 14 guys in our detachment. When I first got there we lived in the quanset huts, but later moved into a building.

I have never seen or talked with anyone I worked with in Bovingdon until two days ago. I by accident found a guy that I hung around with. We are both 70 years old and were trying to remember other guys we worked with. I found some photos that I took 50 years ago. we recognized faces in the photos (I emailed him the photos) but could not remember names.

Getting to the reason for my email to you. Are there any archives in Bovingdon that might have the names of any US servicemen stationed at Bovingdon?. I have not been able to find anything. I have talked with the guy that is President of the US group called The Bovingdon Bunch, but they are almost all Transport Sq guys. If you have any leads for me I would sure appreciate hearing from you.

You may use any photos I send you unless something special turns up. This photo here is taken from same tower, but looks at our billets. You can see water tower in background. That may give you some orientation. Hope you are able to find something for me.

Also including a photo I took of a cricket match - think it was on Bovingdon Green, photo is not good, but thought someone may see something interesting - note same water towers.

Also, as I look around serveral more photos, two were with Bobbies who used to give us 24 hr security (Communist concern) and a RAF plane that crashed at Base. I'm on the tail and also in the little car with guy named Ray Heck.

Dick Gassmann

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