The Dacorum Heritage Trust
 The history of Berkhamsted, Hemel Hempstead, Kings Langley & Tring

Bovingdon Airfield - Station No 112

DACHT : 62.24.4. Four heavy bombing missions were flown from the airfield during the autumn of 1942.

DACHT : 2233.19. The 'Three Mosquitoes' (Harry Evans, Sgt Long and Cpl Baldwin) American Serviceman stationed in Bovingdon, April 1945.

Bovingdon Airfield was built in 1941-42 as a bomber airfield for the Royal Air Force (RAF).
The 8th US Air Force (92nd Bomber Group) arrived there in 1942 and was assigned the role of a B17 Combat Crew Replacement Unit (CCRC). Combat crews of other bomber units arriving in Britain during the next two years received theatre indoctrination at this station.

In September 1944, the CCRC was disbanded. The airfield became the base for the European Air Transport Service and many thousands of GIs retuned to the States via Bovingdon's Air Terminal. Control reverted to the RAF on 15 April 1946. The Americans returned to the Airfield on 25 May 1951 in the form of the 7531st Air Base Squadron operating side-by-side with the RAF and Foreign Service Organisations.

During the post-war years, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) used Bovingdon as a maintenance facility and several other independent aircraft operators made use of the former technical site.

The 7531st departed in 1962 and, in 1968, the Ministry of Defence announced that Bovingdon was one of several airfields due for closure. All that remains today is the derelict Air Traffic Control, as HM Prison 'The Mount' now occupies a large part of the site.

Facts and Statistics - 92nd Bombardment Group:

•  Stations: Bovingdon, Alconbury, Podington
•  First Mission: 1942
•  Last Mission: 25 April 1945
•  Total Bomb Tonnage: 20,829.4 tons
•  Aircraft missing in action: 154
•  Enemy aircraft claims: 207
•  The first bomber group to make non-stop Atlantic flight
•  Led the 8th Airforce's last mission of the war

DACHT : 62.24.1. USAAF Bovingdon softball match at Boxmoor Cricket Ground, May 1943. Locals and Americans were briefed as to the peculiar habits of each other. There were a number of local girls who became GI brides and emigrated at the end of the war.

DACHT : 1207. Plaster from a hut decorated by American servicemen. Similar paintings, referred to as 'noseart', were often seen on American aircraft.