Burtonwood and the Berlin Airlift

 

Mr Aldon Ferguson                25 March 2013

In WW2 Burtonwood was a small RAF station that was taken over and expanded by the American Army Airforce. It was developed to include 5 runways, 5 huge separate sites with   18500 personnel, bus services, 5 living sites with supermarkets – the biggest in Europe.

In 1947 it was the main maintenance base for the Berlin Airlift when 3 streams of transport aircraft from bases in the UK and Europe flew supplies into Tempelhof at the rate of 1 every 3 minutes. Regular maintenance was needed to keep the planes flying and  efficient maintenance crews reduced the service time of each aircraft from 100 hours to 35 hours.

Burtonwood was later used as a support and storage base before it was finally closed in 1988.

The museum which is run by enthusiastic volunteers is still being developed and is situated in Gulliver’s World.