Control Tower, Bassingbourn Barracks (Former RAF Bassingbourn)

Details

1628/0/10009

BASSINGBOURN CUM KNEESWORTH
Control Tower, Bassingbourn Barracks (former RAF Bassingbourn)

GV
II

Control Tower. 1936, adapted 1943. Built to designs of the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings. Rendered brick with asphalt roof.

PLAN: Ground floor has watch office to front with meteorological office, switch room and lavatories to rear; first floor has control room to front, with controller's rest room and signals office to rear.

EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. Large multi-paned steel casements to front and to flank walls of first-floor control room and ground-floor watch office, providing clear views of the flying field. External access to control room from steel stairs on return elevation. Smaller steel casements to rear part of side and rear elevations. Centrally-placed door to rear elevation.

INTERIOR: cast-iron stair.

HISTORY: Although associated with some of the RAF's first 1000 bomber raids, Bassingbourn - opened as a medium bomber base in March 1938 - is more widely known through its function from 1942 as the USAAF's flagship station. The control tower, a 1934 design, was extended in association with the remodelling and extension of the airfield in 1942, prior to the arrival of the 91st Bomber Group in October. Proximity to Cambridge and London facilitated visits by many dignitaries, including Eisenhower and the King and Queen, and the 'Ragged Irregulars' were chosen as the subject of Wyler's celebrated colour film of an American bomber raid, known to millions as the 'Memphis Belle'. It was also the home of the restored 'Shoo Shoo Baby,' now in the Wright Patterson Museum, Dayton, Ohio. One of the 4 'C-type' hangars has been demolished.

In the second half of the 1930s, increasing attention was being given to the dispersal and shelter of aircraft from attack, ensuring serviceable landing and take-off areas, and the control of movement: the result was the development of the control tower and the planning from 1938 of the first airfields with runways and perimeter tracks. The control tower, which first appeared as a recognisable design in 1934, became the most distinctive and instantly recognisable building associated with military airfields, particularly in the Second World War when they served as foci for base personnel as they awaited the return of aircraft from operations. This is one of a very small number of control towers on Second World War airfields which are either exceptionally well-preserved or have distinguished operational histories. Their iconic value both as operational nerve centres and as memorials to the enormous losses sustained by American and Commonwealth forces in the course of the Strategic Bomber Offensive has long been recognised. A deserted control tower, for example, was the focus of the opening scenes of Richard Asquith's film The Way to the Stars (1945), which explored the thoughts of a veteran returning to a deserted airbase, as a ploughshare pulled by a horse team returned land formerly used to wage aggressive war to agriculture.

A major change in military air traffic control took place under Scheme 'A' of the RAF expansion programme of 1934 with the invention of the two-storey watch office, known as the watch office with tower (drawing number 1959/34). This design resembled a child's toy fort, consisting of a large almost square-shaped ground floor with a smaller square-shaped (in plan-form) central observation tower covering an additional one-and-a half stories. With the development of military air traffic control and the construction of hard surface runways with electric lighting installed, it became apparent at most Expansion Period stations of the 1934-40 period that there are problems with the existing building. The building was either in the wrong position, or too small to be fitted out with lighting control panel and other equipment. Therefore at these stations two options were available, either to build a new structure to the latest type design in a position where the ends of runways could easily be seen, or to modify the existing building to create a new and larger control room. Where the latter was chosen, the tower was completely removed and a new brick control room built above the ground floor watch office to drawing number 4698/43. The control room took up the rear two-thirds of the available floor area with the front section becoming a viewing gallery using the existing parapet wall and steel railings. Access was either from the spiral staircase which had been removed and repositioned against a side-wall outside the building, or from an external purpose-built brick staircase. Buildings surviving today in this form are extant at Cranfield, Leconfield and West Raynham. Alternatively, at Bassingbourn, the tower was retained and a new control room was built above the existing parapet wall - but this was a one-off modification.

Paul Francis, British Military Airfield Architecture (Sparkford, 1996); Michael Bowyer, Military Airfields of East Anglia, Action Stations 1 (Cambridge, 1979)

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

494089

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Bowyer, M J F, Action stations 1: Wartime military airfields of East Anglia 1939 to 1945, (1979)
Francis, P, British Military Airfield Architecture From Airships To The Jet Age, (1996)

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