RAF Hartford Bridge (now Blackbushe Airport)

In 2004 the Yateley Society mounted the last of its large annual exhibitions in Yateley Library. The exhibition, entitled Yateley in World War 2 was timed to coincide with Local History Month and the national celebrations for the 60th anniversary of D-Day. This was the Society's first full-scale exhibition of any local history subject which happened after 1901, and included many oral history interviews and reminiscences of living people. The exhibition covered Yateley in the interwar period, the experiences of ordinary Yateley people during the war, and the building of RAF Hartford Bridge on Yateley Common.

It is the exhibition display cards dealing with RAF Hartford Bridge which are reproduced here. Because the exhibition was a celebration of the airfield's role on D-Day, the exhibition was proud to include many first-hand accounts of airmen of their experiences on that day. These were collected by Mr Peter Jenner (a Society member) and Mr Stuart Marshall, then Manager of Blackbushe Airport. Since we do not have their permission to display these memories on a puublic website they are not included here.

I am particularly grateful to Peter Jenner and Stuart Marshall for their great help and encouragement in preparing the Hartford Bridge part of the 2004 Exhibition. Both have written extensive accounts of the history of RAF Hartford Bridge. I was very pleased too to be able to take the exhibition to Blackbushe Airport for the D-Day reunion of the Free French squadron, and to meet many of those brave men who flew from Yateley. PJT

Airfield construction at Yateley 1942

Canadian reconnaissance squadron no 430 formed

Allied Liberation of Europe

Yateley and D-Day - Air Support

Air Chief Marshall Sir William MacDonald

Stuart Marshall's Summary of the D-Day operations

The Free French and D-Day

Bernard Citroen

Pierre Mendez France

The Dutch move in with the latest Spitfires

The Mystery of the Black Mitchells

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