The airfield at Smeatharpe was the last of the three airfields to be built and was officially named Upottery.
Even before the arrival of the airfield the people of the area had the war brought
to them firstly on the night of August 26th 1940 when a Heinkel 111 bomber that had
been laying mines in the Bristol Channel was attacked by a Hurricane fighter flown
by Pilot Officer J.R. Cock from Exeter who successfully brought the bomber down crashing
at Longfield farm, another incident but not so well reported was the dropping of
an incendiary bomb just inside the Buttles lane road junction by a German bomber
this aircraft was picked up in the beam of a nearby searchlight. Not only did the
explosion result in a large crater in the road the blast also destroyed a bungalow
about twenty metres away. This was the home of Mr and Mrs George Wool and an evacuee
boy, Mr and Mrs Wool heard the aircraft and realising the danger they took shelter
under a large kitchen table which was just as well the only thing left standing after
the explosion was the chimney breast. A tall wardrobe saved the evacuee as it held
up the collapsed ceiling and roof. All three occupants happily escaped with out any
major injury.
The main construction of the airfield and its facilities took place during 1943 and
it was designed to a specification which included full bomb storage facilities. On
April 26th 1944 the first operational unit the 439th Troop Carrier Group of the 50th
Wing of the United States Ninth Troop Carrier Command arrived with four Squadrons
equipped with around one hundred C-
