Qualla: RAF Honeybourne https://qualla.com/raf-honeybourne en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: RAF Honeybourne https://qualla.com/raf-honeybourne RAF Honeybourne: Introduction https://qualla.com/raf-honeybourne/ On a flat patch of Worcestershire farmland between Evesham and the Cotswold escarpment, the runways are mostly gone now, ploughed under or torn up in 1968. What remains is a perimeter track, a few wartime hangars repurposed as warehouses, and the outlines of dispersal pans that show up most clearly in aerial photographs. From 1942 to 1947 this was RAF Honeybourne, home to No. 24 Operational Training Unit and one of the busy waypoints in the war's hardest invisible commute: the journey from civilian to bomber crewman, a journey that for thousands of young Canadians, Britons and Czechs began here and for too many of them ended here too.

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/8/raf-honeybourne-wp/gcq8-raf-honeybourne-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full RAF Honeybourne: Five Hangars and 2,355 People https://qualla.com/raf-honeybourne/ By 1 December 1944, Honeybourne quartered 1,973 men and 382 women - a small wartime town. The five hangars included one J Type and four T2s, the standard prefabricated wartime designs. Accommodation was a mix of permanent brick and temporary Nissen huts. The airfield's defence re...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/8/raf-honeybourne-wp/gcq8-raf-honeybourne-five-hangars-and-2-355-people.mp3 0:06 2 full RAF Honeybourne: Why Training Was So Dangerous https://qualla.com/raf-honeybourne/ Operational Training Units worked at the dangerous edge of aviation. The instructors were tour-finished combat veterans. The pupils were young men with a few hundred hours total in their logbooks, flying tired aircraft that had been hard-used through the early bombing campaign. T...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/8/raf-honeybourne-wp/gcq8-raf-honeybourne-why-training-was-so-dangerous.mp3 0:06 3 full RAF Honeybourne: The Night of 3-4 July 1944 https://qualla.com/raf-honeybourne/ The worst loss at Honeybourne came on the night of 3-4 July 1944. A Wellington of No. 24 OTU returned from a cross-country training flight and crashed on landing into the station's bomb dump. Seven Royal Canadian Air Force airmen died. They were not on operations. They had not ye...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/8/raf-honeybourne-wp/gcq8-raf-honeybourne-the-night-of-3-4-july-1944.mp3 0:06 4 full RAF Honeybourne: Whitley Z6639 and Broadway Tower https://qualla.com/raf-honeybourne/ Just over a year before that night, on 2 June 1943, another Honeybourne Whitley flew into the side of the Cotswold escarpment in low cloud at Broadway Tower. All five crew were killed: Pilot H.G. Hagen, Sergeant E.G. Ekins, Flight Sergeant D.H. Kelly, Sergeant D.A. Marriott and S...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/8/raf-honeybourne-wp/gcq8-raf-honeybourne-whitley-z6639-and-broadway-tower.mp3 0:06 5 full RAF Honeybourne: After the War https://qualla.com/raf-honeybourne/ The OTU disbanded in July 1945. The station closed in July 1948. In 1949 and 1950, parts of the site were repurposed as temporary housing for local families displaced while new council estates were built; people moved out as new houses became ready. The runways stayed in place un...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/8/raf-honeybourne-wp/gcq8-raf-honeybourne-after-the-war.mp3 0:06 6 full