page_title: RAF Polebrook
section_title: Current use
hierarchical_section_title: RAF Polebrook / Current use
caption_attribution_description: English: Memorial to the 351st Bomb Group, which stands on the site of the main runway of the WWII airfield RAF Polebrook.
context_page_description: Royal Air Force Station Polebrook or more simply RAF Polebrook is a former Royal Air Force station located 3.5 miles east-south-east of Oundle, at Polebrook, Northamptonshire, England. The airfield was built on Rothschild estate land starting in August 1940.
  It was from Polebrook that the United States Army Air Forces' Eighth Air Force carried out its first heavy bomb group combat mission on 17 August 1942, and from which Major Clark Gable flew combat missions in 1943.
context_section_description: With the end of military control, the remnants of RAF Polebrook were sold back to the Rothschild estate in 1967 and the St Ives Sand and Gravel company broke up all concrete apart from the ends of runways 02 and 32 during the next decade.
  Today, Polebrook airfield has few reminders of its wartime past and is almost unidentifiable from the air.  All of the wartime concreted areas have been removed with the exception of the deteriorating Thor missile launch pads from the early 1960s.  A memorial was erected in early 1981 and some old buildings remain scattered around in the area being used for agricultural purposes. The large J-Type hangar still exists and the owners are very American friendly and very respectful of the hangar's place in history.
caption: 351st Bomb Group Memorial
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