[5] Finningley's participation in RAF Bomber Command's offensive may have been short but the station played a vital part in finishing crews with operational training for the bombing role.

An early pre-war expansion scheme airfield the site, farmland in a well wooded locality 4 miles (6.4 km) southeast of Doncaster was acquired in the summer of 1935.

[7] The Doncaster-Lincoln railway line ran a quarter mile to the north and Finningley village lay a similar distance to the east.

[8] The flying field covered around 250 acres (100 ha) with the camp area situated to the northwest between Mare Flats Plantation and the A1 'Great North Road' (now the A638).

Five Type C hangars were erected in the usual crescent layout facing the bombing circle, with a fifth directly behind the southernmost of the line.

3 Group stations north of the Wash and, under its control, Finningley squadrons started conversion to the Handley Page Hampden, with Avro Ansons to fill out strength until more of this new type were available from production.

[15] The need to establish units devoted to training crews on the new bomber types resulted in the setting up of so-called pool squadrons during the summer of 1939.

12 Squadron, also flying Fairey Battles, came to Finningley to re-arm and re-coup after suffering losses in conflict with the advancing German forces over France in May 1940.

Most of its early sorties were to drop mines in the approaches to French Channel ports thought to be harbouring invasion barges.

106 left its 'C' Flight at Finningley to continue with this task while the rest of the squadron moved to RAF Coningsby for full offensive operations.

25 OTU concentrated on Wellingtons, nine of which were lost when the station was called upon to take part in Bomber Command operations.

[23][24] A concrete perimeter track had been laid in The 1942 and asphalt pan-type hardstandings constructed in 1940–41 linked to it, two of the original clusters crossing the A614 road between Finningley village and Bawtry.

By the end of that year requirements for operational training had reduced and in January 1945 the OTU was disbanded and the Wellingtons removed.

6 Flying Training School RAF, first using Vickers Varsity and later Hawker Siddeley Dominie aircraft.

[33] An 850-acre (340 ha) bombing range used by No 25 and No 18 OTU at RAF Finningley during the Second World War.

[34] An Avro Lancaster bomber dispersal airfield, taken over by the United States Air Force in 1957.

[36] On the Monday 11 August 1952, a Meteor F.4 serial number RA376, located at RAF Finningley, and was one of the aircraft used by No.

215 Advanced Flying School RAF (AFS) had just taken off from the airfield for an exercise when it crashed close to Firbeck Hall in Nottinghamshire, approximately 8 miles (13 km) from the runway.

[39] The airfield became known as the home of the 'V' Bomber after Avro Vulcans, Handley Page Victors and Vickers Valiants had all been stationed at the base.

After the hangar was locked and secured at 17:00 he lit a fire under an aircraft with catastrophic results.

Doncaster Council approved construction of a special built hangar for XH558 and WK163 in 2018, but the project was cancelled completely in February 2022 as not enough money had been raised to meet the £2.2 million cost.

6 Flying Training School (FTS) at RAF Finningley, when the BAe Dominie T.1 s of No.

Low level navigation training took place on the BAC Jet Provost, eventually using the T.5A variant.

[58] Finningley was also home to the Yorkshire Universities Air Squadron, that flew the Scottish Aviation Bulldog at the time, as well as Chipmunk T.10s of No.

[16] The squadron's main tasks were as a target facilities flight providing airborne targets for surface-based radar and missile sites, and as a provider of small and agile 'aggressor' aircraft for Dissimilar air combat training (DACT) for UK-based operational aircraft.

[63] For two decades RAF Finningley was home to the Battle of Britain Air Display which was the largest one-day airshow event in the country, and a similar show was held in Scotland at RAF Leuchars in Fife on the same day as that at Finningley each year.

It closed in 1996, being earmarked for a new prison; however, this plan was dropped and three years later Peel Holdings, a property and transport company, bought the land and transformed it into Doncaster Sheffield Airport.

[67][68][69] The following units were also here at some point: The badge of RAF Finningley, awarded in 1948, showed a Yorkshire Rose on top of a sprig of oak.

The rose represented Yorkshire and the oak Nottinghamshire, as the base straddled the border between the two at its southern end.

[87] Finningley has made at least one momentary appearance in fiction in the BBC film Threads, before the base is destroyed by a Soviet nuclear warhead.