RAF Burtonwood

RAF Burtonwood USAAF Station 590
Burtonwood Air Depot
Part of United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE)
Located Near Warrington, Cheshire, England
Burtonwood Airfield in 1945
RAF Burtonwood USAAF Station 590
Coordinates	53°24′50″N 2°39′04″W / 53.414°N 2.651°W / 53.414; -2.651
Type	Royal Air Force station
Site history
Built	1940
In use	1940–1994

Royal Air Force Burtonwood or more simply RAF Burtonwood is a former Royal Air Force station 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of Warrington, Cheshire (formerly in Lancashire), England. It was also known as USAAF station 590.

Burtonwood airfield was opened on 1 January 1940 as a servicing and storage centre for modifying British aircraft. It was operated by No. 37 Maintenance Unit RAF until June 1942.

The facility was transferred to the United States Army Air Forces in June 1942 to become a servicing centre for the United States Eighth, Ninth, Twelfth and Fifteenth Air Forces aircraft. Burtonwood was also known as Base Air Depot 1 (BAD 1), although an RAF presence continued until October 1943.

Burtonwood was the largest airfield in Europe during the war with the most USAAF personnel and aircraft maintenance facilities. The roar of the engines in the test beds could be heard for miles around, especially at night. By the end of the war 18,000 servicemen were stationed at Burtonwood. According to some sources Burtonwood was placed strategically so that it was out of range of Luftwaffe bombers, but this is not true, as several Nazi air-raids were made on the facility. In any case the Luftwaffe bombed Belfast in 1941, which was much further away from Occupied Europe than Burtonwood. During their leave periods, American servicemen from Burtonwood virtually took over the centre of nearby Warrington.

USAAF Station Units assigned to RAF Burtonwood were:

When hostilities ended, control of Burtonwood was returned to the RAF in June 1946 and became an equipment depot operated by No 276 Maintenance Unit.

In November 1946 six B-29 Superfortress bombers from the USAAF Strategic Air Command 43d Bombardment Group were sent to Burtonwood, and from there to various bases in West Germany as a "training deployment". In May 1947 additional B-29s were deployed to Burtonwood to keep up the presence of a training programme. This so-called training programme was in fact a cover story, intended to conceal their actual mission i.e. to have a strategic air force permanently stationed in Europe. The American presence continued with an echelon of United States Air Force personnel using the facility as a maintenance base for C-54 Skymasters used during the Berlin Airlift.