1 - RAF North Witham Runway 1 Traditional Cache

A walk of approximately 3 miles around the runways and tracks at Twyford Woods, formerly RAF North Witham.

We managed the trail with the mobility scooter, but it is not easy in places and as the weather deteriorates some of the paths will be very muddy. Assistance will be needed to retrieve the caches as the mobility scooter will not be able to get near them

HISTORY: The airfield was built to the standard bomber pattern with three concrete runways and two T2 hangars, one on the technical site to the south-east of the airfield and the other off the north-west perimeter track. The communal and accommodation sites were dispersed to the south, around Honey Pot Lane and the bomb stores were located to the north-east of the airfield. 

North Witham was allocated to the US Ninth Air Force and opened in the autumn of 1943 as Station 479 specifically, the IX Troop Carrier Command (TCC). The US 1st Tactical Air Depot (TAD), a major transport aircraft distribution and maintained C-47s and C-53s of the IX TCC. This also included Horsa and Hadrian assault gliders. During 1944, two Mobile Repair and Reclamation Squadrons (MRSS), 44th MRSS and the 27th MRSS, were also based at the airfield. 

In March 1944, IX TCC Pathfinder School (PFS) arrived at the airfield from RAF Cottesmore, Rutland. The C-47s of the school were equipped with Gee navigational equipment and radar allowing them to drop accurately pathfinder paratroopers. The advance party would then set up visual aids and a device called Eureka. This ground based radar device could pick up the following C-47s in the main force. These were equipped withRebecca receivers which picked up the Eureka signal, thereby accurately guiding the main body of airborne troops to the drop zone. It was C-47s operating from North Witham which led the invasion forces on D-Day, twenty aircraft being dispatched, one of which failed to return having been shot down. The PFS moved to Chalgrove, Oxfordshire between 10-14th September 1944, although C-47 maintenance continued at North Witham on a reducing scale. When the airfield was handed back to the RAF in early 1945, it was briefly placed on Care and Maintenance but by 1st June, it had been allocated to 40 (Maintenance) Group, for aircraft and ordnance storage. 

At the end of the war, North Witham was passed back to the RAF and it became a storage and disposal site until the 1950s when eventually it was finally handed back to the Forestry commission.

CACHE

The caches are mainly camoflaged micros. We hope you enjoy this trail around this historical place