In 1941 the Air Ministry built two airfields on the east coast with runways designed to accept distressed aircraft returning from bombing raids over Germany. One was RAF Woodbridge and the other was RAF Manston in Kent. Woodbridge was chosen because it was sparsely populated and a had a clear unobstructed approach from both east and west.
The Woodbridge runway is 2 miles long with an undershoot and overshoot each of 500yards. The width is 250yards originally divided into three landing strips. The north and central strip could only be used by incoming aircraft under the direction of Flying Control. The south strip was designated an emergency strip for aircraft not in radio contact with the control tower. Three Lancaster bombers were able to land wingtip to wingtip.
It took two years to build the airfield which opened in November 1943. Pebbles for the foundations were taken from Shingle Street beach and a concrete track built for vehicles to cross the shingle is still visable today. Over a million trees from Rendlesham Forest were felled and cleared away before construction could begin. Within two weeks of the opening 62 emergency landings had been made.
On the night of 16/17 December 1943 there was a tragic event which changed the way Woodbridge operated as an emergancy airfield. Several Halifax bombers attempted to recover to Woodbridge but heavy fog and low cloud covered the airfield and only one aircraft landed. The others crashed in the local area. Visability on the runway needed to be improved in bad weather and a system called 'Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation' (FIDO) was installed. FIDO comprised pipelines running either side of the runway into which petrol was injected under pressure. The petrol was ejected through small holes in the pipes and ignited by burners. The ignited fuel produced intense heat that burned the fog away from the runway. Four 350,000 gallon fuel tanks were built to the northeast of the runway to store the vast quantity of petrol required by FIDO. Fuel tankers would have caused congestion on the narrow roads of Suffolk and the petrol was supplied by underground pipeline from a rail siding at Melton railway station.
On 13 July 1944 a Luftwaffe Junkers 88 night fighter took off from Holland on a North Sea patrol and landed at Woodbridge. The crew had become disorientated due to failure of navigational equipment and were convinced they had landed at an airfield on the Danish-German border. The German aircraft, fitted with the latest radar, was immediately taken to a British research establishment where countermeasures were quickly developed. A single mistake provided the RAF some of Germany's closely guarded secrets.
By the end of the Second World War 4,200 aircraft had made emergency landings at RAF Woodbridge. After the war the airfield was used by the RAF for Lancaster aircraft to drop bombs on Orford Ness, the experimental bomb range, until 14 March 1948 when it was closed.
In April 1952 the USAF moved into RAF Woodbridge. The base was expanded to accommodate American air squadrons involved in the Cold War. In 1990, with the end of the Cold War, Woodbridge started to phase -down and on 14 August 1993 the airfield was deactivated and closed.
On 1 September 2006 RAF Woodbidge was renamed Rock Barracks and 23 Engineer Regiment (Air Assault) moved into a newly built barracks.
This article has been compiled by Dr Dawson Pratt, Military Historian.