Flying at Fowlmere began during the First World War. In 1918, three Royal Air Force squadrons — Nos. 124, 125, and 126 — used the field. American flying cadets from the Air Service of the United States Army were trained here by RAF instructors before deployment to the Western Front. By 1923, the temporary buildings had been demolished and the field returned to farmland. It was the first of two lives. The second began in the Second World War, when Fowlmere was reactivated as a satellite station for RAF Fighter Command at nearby Duxford, just eight miles to the northeast. The two airfields operated as a pair: aircraft and personnel moved between them to create space, maximize readiness, and maintain the complex logistics of running a multi-squadron fighter station.

During the Battle of Britain, 19 Squadron based their Supermarine Spitfires at Fowlmere after moving from Duxford to create space for additional units. On any given day during the summer and autumn of 1940, aircraft from both Fowlmere and Duxford would have been airborne over southern England, intercepting Luftwaffe formations. The famous photographs of Spitfires being rearmed between sorties at Fowlmere in September 1940 capture something that is easy to abstract — the operational reality of the Battle of Britain — made concrete in the mud and grass and fuel-smelling mechanics' work of a Cambridgeshire airfield. Fowlmere handled squadrons from Canada, Eagle Squadron Americans, and multiple British units across the wartime years, making it as internationally composite as any front-line station in the RAF.

When the Americans took over, Fowlmere was expanded to accommodate a complete fighter group. Designated USAAF Station 378, it became home to the 339th Fighter Group, which arrived from Rice Army Air Field in California on 4 April 1944. The 339th flew under the 66th Fighter Wing of the VIII Fighter Command, the same command structure as Duxford's 78th Fighter Group. Their aircraft carried a red-and-white chequerboard pattern. Like their neighbours at Duxford, the 339th flew escort missions for heavy bombers targeting German industry, infrastructure, and V-weapon sites — the unglamorous, dangerous work of long-range fighter escort that ground down the Luftwaffe's capacity to resist. With the German surrender in May 1945, the Americans withdrew, and the RAF used the field briefly through January 1946 before closure.

After years as farmland, Fowlmere came back to life as a private airfield. Under new management as of November 2020, it now hosts the British Aerobatic Academy, the Modern Air flying club, and the Fowlmere Airfield Museum. The grass runway runs northeast to southwest, and the Prior Permission Required policy ensures that the small field remains manageable. The museum opens once a month, staffed by volunteers who maintain the memory of what this unassuming strip of Cambridgeshire supported across two world wars. Nearby Cambridge, visible to the northeast on a clear day, went on to peace. Fowlmere went back to grass. Both outcomes are, in their way, what the men who flew from here were fighting for.