According to some sources Burtonwood was placed strategically so that it was out of range of Luftwaffe bombers, but this is not true, as several Nazi air raids were made on the facility.

In November 1946 six B-29 Superfortress bombers from the USAAF Strategic Air Command 43d Bombardment Group were sent to Burtonwood, and from there to various bases in West Germany as a "training deployment".

This so-called training programme was in fact a cover story, intended to conceal their actual mission i.e. to have a strategic air force permanently stationed in Europe.

The American presence continued with an echelon of United States Air Force personnel using the facility as a maintenance base for C-54 Skymasters used during the Berlin Airlift.

On 7 November 1953 the USAF 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron began operating from the base flying initially the WB-29 then WB-50D Superfortress, having been transferred from Kindley Field, Bermuda.

During the 1950s, European-based USAF aircraft were overhauled or modified at Burtonwood, including Republic F-84 Thunderjets, F-84F Thunderstreaks and North American F-86 Sabres.

During the 1970s the US Army continued to use Burtonwood for operations of transiting DHC-1 Beavers and there was usually at least one Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter based there, making regular appearances at Liverpool (Speke) airport in the early 1970s.

[9] There was increased attention to the behaviour of young girls that would loiter around the army bases like Burtonwood and spend time with the American troops.

[9] Women were portrayed as vulnerable to these men and there were social concerns about how "half-caste" babies 'threatened to blur the racial lineaments of British national identity.

'[9] Venessa Baird, born in April 1958 to a Liverpudlian mother and Black GI based at Burtonwood airfield,[8] is one of many mixed-race babies that came of the interracial relationships between British women and African-American troops during World War II.

Baird explains how there was a small and accepting community at USAF bases and the women that had met African-American men were good friends and formed a 'large extended family'[8] with their mixed-race children.

Burtonwood was used as a receiving depot for USAF and United States Army equipment and supplies being withdrawn from their former French NATO facilities.

The idea was that in the event of an emergency, U.S. troops in the USA that were earmarked for NATO service in Europe would fly over and pick up their kit from Burtonwood before going on to the battle front.

This left some of the World War II aircraft hardstands, part of the old airfield perimeter track, and the northwest end of a secondary runway still visible.