Ossington Airfield
Disused buildings at RAF Ossington
Newark Air Museum Archive
Former hangar at RAF Ossington
Newark Air Museum Archive
Former watch tower at RAF Ossington
Newark Air Museum Archive
Memorial stone to 82 OTU crew lost near Laxton
Howard Heeley
By Howard Heeley
Grid Ref: Sheet 120; SK745648; 8 miles NW of Newark
Opened: January 1942
Squadrons: No 14 Pilot AFU; 82 OTU; 1685 Training Flt; 6 LFS (Transport Command & BOAC); 1384 HTCU
Aircraft: Oxford; Wellington; Martinet; Tomahawk; Lancaster; Lancastrian; York
Nationalities: Commonwealth
Things of note: Originally built as a decoy base it never became a front line operational station but was always involved with training. Most notably towards the end of the war training Lancaster pilots to fly Lancastrian aircraft to operate on the BOAC London to New Zealand route, closing in 1946
Current status: The concrete runways have been broken up; however some original wartime buildings still exist and are used by local farmers. These are far more extensive than first thought but most are on private land
The photograph of the Laxton memorial has been included in the photographs to accompany this write-up as the aircraft and crew were fling from RAF Ossington when they crashed near to Laxton. Work is currently ongoing to locate the families / relatives of the Canadian airmen lost in this crash.
(This information was originally published in the 2011 booklet “Aviation in Nottinghamshire”, which was produced by the Newark Air Museum thanks to a Local Improvement Scheme grant from the Nottinghamshire County Council. Photographs sourced from the Newark Air Museum Archive.)