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Royal Air Force Station Lymington
USAAF Station AAF-551

Ensign of the Royal Air Force

Patch9thusaaf
Located Near Lymington, Hampshire, England
Lymington-22may44
Lymington Airfield - 22 May 1944
Coordinates 50°45′59″N 001°30′46″W / 50.76639°N 1.51278°W / 50.76639; -1.51278
Type Military airfield
Code LY
Site information
Controlled by United States Army Air Forces
Site history
Built 1943
In use 1944-1946
Battles/wars

European Theatre of World War II
Air Offensive, Europe July 1942 - May 1945

RAF Lymington is located in Hampshire
Red pog
RAF Lymington, shown within Hampshire
Garrison information
Garrison Ninth Air Force
Occupants 50th Fighter Group

RAF Station Lymington is a former World War II airfield in Hampshire, England. The airfield is located approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Lymington; about 80 miles (130 km) southwest of London

Opened in 1944, Lymington was a prototype for the type of temporary Advanced Landing Ground type airfield which would be built in France after D-Day, when the need advanced landing fields would become urgent as the Allied forces moved east across France and Germany. It was used by the Royal Air Force, Canadian and the United States Army Air Forces. It was closed in 1946 after two years of being utilized as a storage area for the Royal Navy.

Today the airfield is a mixture of agricultural fields with a private grass airfield using the North/South runway.

USAAF use[]

Lymington was known as USAAF Station AAF-551 for security reasons by the USAAF during the war, and by which it was referred to instead of location. It's USAAF Station Code was "LY".

50th Fighter Group[]

RAF Lymington saw the arrival of the USAAF 50th Fighter Group on 5 April 1944, the group arriving from Orlando AAF, Florida. The 50th had the following operational squadrons:

The 50th was a group of Ninth Air Force's 84th Fighter Wing, IX Tactical Air Command. It flew the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. The group ended operations at Giebelstadt, Germany in May 1945, and returned to the United States in August. I

Civil use[]

With the facility released from military control in 1946, almost all traces of the former airfield were removed.

One of the original blister hangars remains on the standing today adjacent to a private grass airstrip (Pylewell House) overlaid on the site of the former N/S military airfield runway, (31/13). The airfield appears to be closed, with white "X"s shown on the runway ends.

See also[]

References[]

PD-icon This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.

  • Freeman, Roger A. (1994) UK Airfields of the Ninth: Then and Now 1994. After the Battle ISBN 0-900913-80-0
  • Freeman, Roger A. (1996) The Ninth Air Force in Colour: UK and the Continent-World War Two. After the Battle ISBN 1-85409-272-3
  • Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-89201-092-4.

External links[]

All or a portion of this article consists of text from Wikipedia, and is therefore Creative Commons Licensed under GFDL.
The original article can be found at RAF Lymington and the edit history here.
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