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RAF Harrington

Royal Air Force Harrington or more simply RAF Harrington is a former Royal Air Force station in England about 5.6 miles (9.0 km) west of Kettering in Northamptonshire south of the village of Harrington off the A14 road. During the early Cold War, it was a Thor missile site, designed to deliver atomic warheads to the Soviet Union. The nuclear missile site is now protected as a Grade II listed building as an example of Cold War architecture.

RAF Harrington
USAAF Station 179

History[edit]

United States Army Air Forces use[edit]

The airfield was opened in September 1943 and was originally planned as a satellite for No. 84 Operational Training Unit RAF at RAF Desborough. The airfield was built by 826th and 852nd Engineer Battalions of the US Army intended for heavy bomber use and was completed in the spring of 1944.


Harrington was allocated to the United States Army Air Forces Eighth Air Force and assigned USAAF designation Station 179.


USAAF Station Units assigned to RAF Harrington were:[1]

List of former Royal Air Force stations

Freeman, Roger A. (1978) Airfields of the Eighth: Then and Now. After the Battle  0-900913-09-6

ISBN

Freeman, Roger A. (1991) The Mighty Eighth The Colour Record. Cassell & Co.  0-304-35708-1

ISBN

Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History.  0-89201-092-4.

ISBN

www.controltowers.co.uk Harrington

mighty8thaf.preller.us Grafton Harrington

USAAS-USAAC-USAAF-USAF Aircraft Serial Numbers--1908 to present

Carpetbagger Aviation Museum, Harrington, Northamptonshire

492ndBombGroup.com

Modern-day photo gallery of Harrington

Thor Missile Deployment in the UK

Thor Missile Pads Today

Kettering and District Amateur Radio Society on QRZ

Kettering and District Amateur Radio Society website