RAF Westcott

RAF Westcott is a former Royal Air Force station located in Westcott, Buckinghamshire.

History
It was used by No. 11 Operational Training Unit RAF during the war, along with its satellite station RAF Oakley. RAF Westcott opened in September 1942 with crews using Vickers Wellington bombers for training.

Many of these crews saw active service in Avro Lancaster bombers in the fierce aerial campaign waged by RAF Bomber Command over occupied Europe.

The RAF moved out in August 1945 shortly after nearly 53,000 liberated allied POWs who arrived by air into Westcott as the first UK staging post in their repatriation in Operation Exodus. The station closed on 3 April 1946.

In the 1960s and 1970s, it was the home of the Rocket Propulsion Establishment. One notable feature of this era was that RAF Westcott did not appear on Ordnance Survey maps of the area.

The site is now a Venture Park, for light industry.