Membury at War Book
Everyday thousands of motorists pass Membury Services on the M4 Motorway between London and Bristol. Few will see the old concrete runways or notice the hangars as they speed by, but both are clues to its former wartime past. In 1941 the landscape around the tiny settlement of Lambourn Woodlands changed dramatically. During that year the Air Ministry took control of over 500 acres of land and started to build an airfield, just one of many being constructed in the United Kingdom at that time. Membury airfield officially opened in August 1942 and over the following three years played a vitally important part in the liberation of Nazi occupied Europe.
