856 USAAF RAF HARRINGTON B-24 LIBERATOR 5Z -

858 USAAF RAF HARRINGTON B-24 LIBERATOR 9A -

Harrington airfield, known as Station 179 during WW2, was built by the 826th and 852nd Engineer Battalions of the US Army as a Class A airfield intended for heavy bomber use, the main runway length being approximately a mile. Construction started on the 11th July 1942 by a battalion of aviation engineers who were subsequently alerted and sent to the North African Theatre of Operations. The two other engineering battalions carried on the work. The airfield was completed in the spring of 1944.

Approximately 860,000 square yards of concrete were laid, with one and three quarter million bricks being used, 210,000 cubic yards of soil being moved and 6 miles of roadway formed.

It took four engineering soldiers under the command of a corporal to complete a standard 16 ft by 18 ft Nissen Hut in two days. Eighty man hours were used (originally 225 hours per hut had been allocated).

Although this airfield had initially been constructed for use by a B-17 Flying Fortress Bomb Group, this group was diverted to North Africa to support Operation Torch. It was therefore taken over as a satellite station for training the bomber crews of the nearby RAF 84th Operational Training Unit at Desborough who mainly operated Wellington bombers.