The attack on Croydon aerodrome during August 1940 was a raid intended to hit RAF Kenley a few miles away, but its outcome saw the loss of many of the raiders including the attacking unit’s commanding officer in an episode that has fascinated and puzzled researchers of the period as Simon Parry and Mark Postlethwaite explain.
With the Luftwaffe continuing its objective to cripple the RAF both in the air and on the ground, so attacks against RAF airfields continued and intensified from mid-August 1940 with targets like the airfields at Biggin Hill, Tangmere, Hawkinge and Kenley in RAF Fighter Command’s vital 11 Group area all high priority on the German’s target list. Croydon, which had been London’s airport pre-war, was now an operational RAF fighter airfield and whilst its status might well have meant that it, too, was on the target list it is certainly a fact that an attack had neither been planned or intended for 15 August 1940. Indeed, it has often been suggested that Hitler had hoped to arrive here in triumph once victory over Britain had been secured and thus attacks on the aerodrome were expressly forbidden. Whilst that may or may not have been the case, it is certainly …
