help with lost sussex airfield

[bloggins]

I live in Southbourne, near the sussex/hampshire border, in the PO10 postal district. Just east of Emsworth. Not to be confused with the southbournes near eastbourne and dorset.

There is a tradition that just behind where my house now is there was a WW1 airfield, and a further tradition that it was used to train a US bomber squadron.

Extensive googling has turned up nothing beyond this, so presumably it was not called "Southbourne Aerodrome" or similar.

The rumoured position can be found by googling "clovelly road, southbourne" and clicking "maps".

It has even been suggested that the current small industrial site may have replaced some hangars.

Can anyone throw any light on whether this airfield existed, and point me towards further details, please ?

What would it have been like - just a grass field and a few hangars ? What sort of take-off run would ww1 bombers have required ?

Many thanks

B

[TJJ]

As fields were often requisitioned to set up aerodromes, these were sometimes named after the farms where the land was located - Hainault Farm, Suttons Farm, Gardeners Farm etc. It may be worth looking at a pre-WW1 OS map in your local library to see if any farms are named in the area as this could give a clue.

Lots of the buildings would have been temporary wooden huts and hangars or even tents, which were removed at the end of the war. Structures do survive. At Hainault Farm the hangers have since been clad in brick and are still used as warehousing.

US bomber squadrons were equipped two-seater DH4s or Breguets, so wouldn't need a long take off run. Most fields were not more than 950 yards long. In those days they preferred to land into wind rather than have fixed runways.

[Cliff]

B

Considering how few U.S. Bombardment Sqns. there were :
the 11th, 20th, 96th, 100th, 155th, 163rd & 166th, I skimmed Gorrell
to see if there was any mention of Southbourne, etc.
Browse Original Documents (http://www.footnote.com/browse.php#All|19742844)

I'm not all that familiar with where places are in England, but I noted the following:
The 11th & 20th went thru Lincolnshire and Winchester before France.
The 96th & 100th stayed in Southampton for a short while before France.
The 155th was in the Salisbury Plain and Winchester.
The 163rd was in Norfolk, Stamford and Winchester.
No data for the 166th.

Also, the Observation Sqns used very similar aircraft, so it's possibly one of them as well.

Cliff