About
Memorial Unveiling at the sites of Matching Airfield and Chipping Ongar (Willingale) Airfield
Sunday 18th September at 10.30am (Matching) and 1.30pm (Chipping Ongar)
Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust will be unveiling two memorials at historic airfields in the Epping Forest District on Sunday 18th September. At the Chipping Ongar event, Willingale Parish Council have been exceptionally kind and have organised a display of military vehicles and a Willingale Archive Display.
Everyone is welcome.
Matching - CM5 0JP
Please note the postcode may not be accurate, further details are - location alongside 391st Bomb Group Unit Memorial on Anchor Lane (east side of the airfield, north of the industrial estate)
Built in 1943 as an Eighth Air Force bomber base, Matching was transferred to the - Ninth Air Force and first occupied in January 1944 by the 391st Bomb Group, equipped with B-26s. The station had three concrete runways, 50 loop hardstandings and two dispersed T2 hangars. After the 391st Bomb Group moved to France in September 1944, the station was handed over to the RAF, although C-47s of IX Troop Carrier Command were detached to Matching later in 1944 for exercises with British paratroops. Closed in 1945, the station quickly reverted to agriculture and the concrete areas were mostly removed for road hardcore. In the late 1980s, one T2 hangar was dismantled and transferred to North Weald Airfield. The Control Tower remains in use as a radar equipment test facility owned by Raytheon
https://www.facebook.com/events/780930133112412/?ref=newsfeed
https://www.americanairmuseum.com/place/238
Chipping Ongar also known as Willingale - CM5 0QA
The air base was constructed by the 831st Engineer Battalion (Aviation) in late August 1942. The 387th Bomb Group were the only American group to be based there, flying B-26 Marauders in strategic missions over France, first for the Eighth and then for the Ninth Air Force after October 1943. The Group supported the invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and left Chipping Ongar in preparation for the move to France the following month.
https://www.facebook.com/events/3321833724749799/?ref=newsfeed
https://willingalevillage.uk/archive-project/willingale-airfield-2/
About the Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust
The Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust was established in 2006 to acknowledge the enormous contribution UK airfields have made since 1909.
0141 483 8798
