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Summary

RAF Digby was opened towards the end of the First World War, and is still in use.

Full description

Lincolnshire's only true Battle of Britain airfield can be found a few miles south of Lincoln between the villages of Scopwick and Digby. Spitfires and Hurricanes based at RAF Digby played a minor role in the battles waged over south-east England in the late summer and early autumn of 1940, supporting the squadrons based in East Anglia in the 'Big Wing' tactics employed in the later stages of the campaign. Later, Digby was to become the only airfield in Lincolnshire to be directly controlled by the Royal Canadian Air Force, and of the 36 fighter squadrons to serve there during the war, no fewer than eleven were Canadian.
The airfield dates back to the First World War when open fields near the village of Scopwick were used as a relief landing ground by the RNAS at Cranwell, when it was known as Scopwick. Between the wars it was used extensively for training (its commanding officer was, for a few months in 1920, Squadron Leader A. T. Harris, later to become Commander in Chief of Bomber Command) and was upgraded and extensively modernised as part of the RAF expansion programme in 1935-36. Following the completion of that work it passed to the control of 22 Group of Fighter Command and was to remain a fighter airfield for much of the Second World War.
It was used as a training airfield after the war, and is still open. {1}{2}{3}

<1> Otter, P, 1996, Lincolnshire Airfields in the Second World War, pp.82-7 (Bibliographic Reference). SLI7228.

<2> T.N. Hancock, 1978, Bomber County, pp.115/6 (Bibliographic Reference). SLI1060.

<3> Council for British Archaeology, 2006, Defence of Britain Archive, 4024 (Digital Archive). SLI14623.

Monument Types

• AIRFIELD (First World War to 21st Century - 1918 AD to 2050 AD)

Sources and further reading

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