D-Day: Dorset airfield commemorated during ceremony

Residents remembered and honoured those who flew from, and served at, the RAF station at Tarrant Rushton - between Wimborne and Blandford - on Saturday, June 1. 

The first British troops to land in Normandy in the first few minutes of D-Day on June 6, 1944, flew in six wooden Horsa gliders that took off from Tarrant Rushton. 

Among those attending the service were two veterans who served at Tarrant Rushton in 1944: 99-year-old former ground crew Halifax engineer Bob Wakeling from Surrey and 99-year-old former WAAF clerk Anne Martin from Fordingbridge. 

RAF Tarrant Rushton D-Day 6 June 1944 (Image: Andrew PM Wright)

Also attending was 103-year-old Joan Clark from Wimborne whose late husband Patrick Clark was in the Glider Pilot Regiment. 

Meanwhile, a restored heavy industrial tractor used for towing aircraft and gliders at Tarrant Rushton in 1944 restored by David Maidment, from Charlton Marshall near Blandford, was also at the service. 

After the service, members of the Dorset Gliding Club based near Wareham – which operated from Tarrant Rushton airfield in the 1970s – performed two fly pasts over the former airfield with a tug aircraft towing a glider. 

Friends of Tarrant Rushton Airfield Memorial chair Anne Gardner said: “It was a wonderful and moving occasion of shared memory and remembrance.  

“It was great to be able to meet and speak with so many children and grandchildren of Tarrant Rushton veterans among others.  

Anne Martin & Bob Wakeling at Tarrant Rushton (Image: Andrew PM Wright)

“I would like to thank everyone who helped plan and stage the service as well as all those people who attended from near and far – one family travelling from Spain. 

“Tarrant Rushton airfield has a remarkable and important history in war and peace. The courage of its Halifax aircrews, glider pilots and airborne troops should be remembered and commemorated.  

“The bravery and sacrifice of the men who failed to return after flying from the airfield should never be forgotten.” 

Opening in May, 1943, Tarrant Rushton airfield was built to train bomber and glider pilots for the D-Day, Arnhem and Rhine Crossing operations as well as the dropping of secret agents from the Special Operations Executive in occupied Europe, from southern France to the Low Countries and Norway.