Qualla: RAF Wittering https://qualla.com/raf-wittering en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/e/raf-wittering-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: RAF Wittering https://qualla.com/raf-wittering RAF Wittering: Introduction https://qualla.com/raf-wittering/ Photo credit David Luther Thomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 15 May 1957, a Vickers Valiant XD818 took off from RAF Wittering and flew six and a half thousand miles to Malden Island in the Pacific, where it dropped Britain's first thermonuclear device over the Pacific on Operation Grapple. Both the aircraft and the bomb had been refined and prepared on this Cambridgeshire airfield, a place that had begun its life forty-one years earlier as a wooden hangar belonging to a Royal Flying Corps squadron hunting German Zeppelins. By the late 1960s the same runways were the base of the world's first operational vertical-take-off jet fighter. RAF Wittering's history runs in a single line through three quarters of British air power.

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Image: David Luther Thomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/e/raf-wittering-wp/gcre-raf-wittering-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full RAF Wittering: The Zeppelin Years https://qualla.com/raf-wittering/ Photo credit Sunil060902, CC BY-SA 3.0. Wittering opened on 5 May 1916 as RFC Stamford, home to A Flight of No. 38 (Home Defence) Squadron. The job was anti-Zeppelin patrol: night-flying frail biplanes (BE2cs, RE7s, FE2bs) over the East Midlands to engage the German airships then conducting Britain's first strategic bo...

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Image: Sunil060902 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/e/raf-wittering-wp/gcre-raf-wittering-the-zeppelin-years.mp3 0:06 2 full RAF Wittering: Pathfinders and the Long Runway https://qualla.com/raf-wittering/ Photo credit NotFromUtrecht, CC BY-SA 3.0. Wittering was a Fighter Command station throughout the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, part of No. 12 Group operating from RAF Watnall. Squadrons rotated through, taking turns in the south of England under 11 Group's punishing schedule and then coming north for rest. The station...

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Image: NotFromUtrecht | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/e/raf-wittering-wp/gcre-raf-wittering-pathfinders-and-the-long-runway.mp3 0:06 3 full RAF Wittering: The Nuclear Decades https://qualla.com/raf-wittering/ Photo credit The original uploader was Kev747 at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0. Bomber Command took over the station in 1953 as the Cold War turned RAF Wittering into a vital piece of the British nuclear deterrent. Avro Lincolns gave way to English Electric Canberras the same year. In November 1953 the first operational British atomic bomb (Blue Danube) was ...

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Image: The original uploader was Kev747 at English Wikipedia. | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/e/raf-wittering-wp/gcre-raf-wittering-the-nuclear-decades.mp3 0:06 4 full RAF Wittering: Home of the Harrier https://qualla.com/raf-wittering/ Photo credit Richard Humphrey, CC BY-SA 2.0. From August 1969 the first operational Harriers arrived for No. 1 (Fighter) Squadron, and Wittering became known as the Home of the Harrier. The aircraft was unprecedented: a single-seat jet fighter capable of vertical take-off, hover, and landing on unimproved surfaces, the worl...

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Image: Richard Humphrey | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/e/raf-wittering-wp/gcre-raf-wittering-home-of-the-harrier.mp3 0:06 5 full