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RAF Birch USAAF Station 149
Birch,Essex in England
RAF Birch during World War II, September 1944. The fully completed airfield was essentially never used by the Allies.
Site information
Type	Royal Air Force station
Owner	Air Ministry
Operator	Royal Air Force United States Army Air Forces
Location
RAF Birch Shown within Essex
Coordinates	51°50′33″N000°46′50″E / 51.84250°N 0.78056°E /51.84250; 0.78056
Site history
Built	1944 (1944)
In use	1944-1945 (1945)
Airfield information
Elevation	42 metres (138 ft)AMSL
Runways Direction Length and surface 02/20 1,300 metres (4,265 ft) Concrete 08/26 1,800 metres (5,906 ft) Concrete 14/32 1,300 metres (4,265 ft) Concrete

Royal Air Force Birch or more simplyRAF Birch is a formerRoyal Air Forcestation inEssex,England. The airfield is located 2 mi (3.2 km) northeast ofTiptree; about 43 mi (69 km) northeast ofLondon

Opened in 1942, it was used by both theRoyal Air Force andUnited States Army Air Forces. During the war it was used primarily as a reserve transport airfield. It was closed after the war, in late 1945.

Today, the remains of the airfield are located on private property in agricultural use.

The following units were here at some point:^[1]

• No. 48 Squadron RAF
• No. 233 Squadron RAF
• No. 381 Maintenance Unit RAF
• No. 382 Maintenance Unit RAF
• No. 383 Maintenance Unit RAF
• No. 384 Maintenance Unit RAF

Birch was known by the USAAF asUSAAF Station AAF-149 for security reasons and was referred to as such, instead of by location. Its USAAF Station Code was "BR".

After release from military control, the airfield was returned to agricultural use.

Today, most of the concreted areas have been removed for hardcore, leaving single-tracked farm roads along the main runway, one secondary runway, and parts of the perimeter track. Blind Lane (a public road) now runs along the other secondary runway (02/20), its original course having been displaced when the airfield was built. Some hardstanding is used by Essex Council for garden waste composting, the main site being accessed via the main runway. A few loop hardstands remain intact, off the remains of the single-tracked perimeter track along the north side of the airfield. However, other than these farm roads, there is little remaining of a wartime airfield that was never used, other than some ghostly disturbed areas visible in aerial photography. These represent loop dispersal hardstands and the long-since-removed perimeter track.

• List of former Royal Air Force stations

 This article incorporatespublic domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency

• Freeman, Roger A. (1978) Airfields of the Eighth: Then and Now. After the BattleISBN 0-900913-09-6
• Freeman, Roger A. (1991) The Mighty Eighth The Colour Record. Cassell & Co.ISBN 0-304-35708-1
• Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History.ISBN 0-89201-092-4.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toRAF Birch.

• Photographs of RAF Birch from the Geograph British Isles project

• Royal Air Force stations in Essex
• Airfields of the 9th Bombardment Division in the United Kingdom
• Royal Air Force stations of World War II in the United Kingdom

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• Coordinates on Wikidata
• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Air Force Historical Research Agency
• Commons category link is on Wikidata