Clandestine Airstrips.

Well, I don't know the exact location of this one - and maybe never will, but if there was one.....there must have been more.

I was talking to one of the former officers at Twinwood and they walked me to an old blister hanger at the edge of the technical site. Shifty looking me in suits would arrive by car in the dead of night followed by the landing of a Lysander. He also said that no one was allowed within 100 yards of the hanger whilst this was happening. He was quite high up the command structure at the airfield and to this day it was a total mystery. If you visit the airfield it's the blister hanger you see on your right as you enter the museum site.

As a youngster, I recall seeing quite a few of those blister hangars scattered around the countryside, well away from normal RAF 'dromes. Over more recent years, I've found that some were on rather ad-hoc airfields that were usually small pre-war civil airfields. Hockley Heath was one example. This was used pre-war for civil flying. When the Jerries started bombing Brum' and especially the huge VACBAF works, it was arranged for a few Spitfires to be based just to the south to intercept these low-level raiders - and Hockley Heath was one - I forget where the others were. Not clandestine of course, but there used to be a row of those blister hangars right next to the road there. They went in the 1970's I think. There used to be some just outside Warwick too, but they may have been moved there later. Generally, they seem to have survived pretty well until the curved corrugated-iron sheeting started to perforate. I guess that stuff isn't easy to replace today.
I digress. I do think however, that there is a rather interesting story here in relation to these secret airstrips. After so long however, and given the nature of the activity, it may well be almost impossible to dredge much information up.
Such airstrips are certainly hard to see from the air even without deliberate camouflage, as any modern-day pilot will attest who regularly uses small grass airstrips. You sometimes can't see the buggers, even when one knows they are right in front of one. There are about five such airstrips near Ledbury for example, but even with the help of Google Earth they aren't easy to find. Back in the '40's, it'd have been effectively impossible from a German perspective.

Twinwood isnt that far from Tempsford Im guessing it was used occassionally instead of Tempsford.

I just saw a note on Google Earth that Audley End is an ex-Polish SOE airstrip. I never knew that.