page_title: Royal Air Force Special Duties Service
section_title: RAF Tempsford
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Air Force Special Duties Service / Airfields / RAF Tempsford
caption_attribution_description: English: RAF Tempsford airfield as seen from the air, 1943
context_page_description: The Royal Air Force Special Duties Service was a secret air service created to provide air transport to support the resistance movement in Axis controlled territories. The service helped develop and support the resistance by bringing in agents, wireless operators and supplies. Parachute drop was the primary method by which the Special Duties units delivered supplies and most of the agents to the occupied countries. They also developed an air taxi service to pick up agents, political leaders and special communications from occupied Europe and bring them to England. On the outward flight the air taxi service also delivered agents and high value packages to France. Special Duties flights flew to target fields in Vichy France, Occupied France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Greece. By the end of the war Special Duties units were also operating in the Far East. The air units were controlled by the Royal Air Force, and worked closely with the SOE and the SIS.
context_section_description: The airfield at Tempsford was located in a relatively remote part of the Bedfordshire countryside. It was built on the land of the Gibraltar Farm, which was situated across a low bog. The airfield was developed in 1940 under the specifications of an "A" class airfield, though it was kept clandestine. The locals knew there was an RAF station down a little side-road marked “This road is closed to the public”, but they knew little else. Since the flights were all undertaken at night, the local farmers saw very little of the aircraft that operated out of Tempsford. Built over a bog, this became telling later when fog proved a recurring significant hazard to landing aircraft. The airfield lay largely dormant until the arrival of the SD squadrons in 1942. 138 Squadron moved to Tempsford 11 March 1942. 161 Squadron followed 10 April 1942. The first covert supply mission flown from Tempsford was carried out by 138 Squadron in the March moon period to a drop zone in northern France, 18 March 1942.
  Underdeveloped, Tempsford was not a typical RAF airfield. It did have the standard three runways laid out at 60 degree angles to each other in a triangular pattern, and a perimeter track which circled the field's dispersals. Hugh Verity, the former commanding officer of 161 Squadron's A Flight,  described it as "not much of an RAF station." RAF Tempsford was designed to look like an ordinary working farm. SOE agents were lodged in a local hotel before being brought to Tempsford's farm buildings. No one was allowed to see, let alone speak to, the agents being ferried to France. One of the buildings was brick built, but had wood siding framed around the structure to disguise it. This structure was commonly referred to as the Gibraltar Farm. It was very unusual for any structure to be standing within the perimeter track of an RAF airfield, but at Tempsford the Gibraltar Farm and a number of other farm buildings were located there. After final briefings and checks at the farm, the agents were issued firearms in the barn, and then boarded onto an awaiting aircraft flown by one of a team of pilots.
  Though keen to discover the source of the SD flights, the Germans were never able to determine where the Special squadrons were based, though twice a German agent was picked up lurking about near the airfield.
caption: Hangars and temporary huts in the southeast corner of RAF Tempsford, 1943
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