[3][4][5] It was the responsibility of the first camp commandant, Flight Lieutenant A. Mackenzie, to establish the base camp and its flying ground, to set up, operate and maintain ground and towed targets for practice machine gun firing and bomb dropping by the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm biplane squadrons.

6 Operational Training Unit (OTU) was formed and arrived at RAF Sutton Bridge for training fighter pilots, commanded by Squadron Leader Philip Campbell Pinkham, with a complement of Hawker Hurricane, Miles Mentor and North American Harvard aircraft, including one Gloster Gladiator, its first pilot pool came from No.

[5] During the Second World War, airfield ground defence at RAF Sutton Bridge consisted an array of Anti-Aircraft (AA) weapons, such as Bofors 40 mm cannons and Lewis or Vickers machine guns, manned by some 66 officers and men of "D" Company 1st Battalion of the Cambridgeshire Regiment, from defences and pillboxes distributed around the airfield station perimeter.

As most air raid warnings occurred during the hours of darkness, a searchlight battery operated by 10 men of the Royal Engineers was also present.

Obstruction lights were also installed, to prevent Allied aircraft from mistakenly landing on the decoy dummy airfield.

[5][19] The German Luftwaffe took its first aerial bombing assault on RAF Sutton Bridge on the night of 30–31 August 1940, where the Terrington decoy "Q" site would prove its effectiveness.

[5][19] On 16 February 1941, amidst low cloud and afternoon drizzle, and without warning, a single Heinkel He 111 bomber appeared out of the grey sky, circuited RAF Sutton Bridge airfield, dropped nine bombs and sprayed the area with machine gun fire, before disappearing back into the cloud as quickly as it had appeared.

[5] One further air raid followed on the "Q" site when two bombers dropped eight High Explosive bombs shortly after midnight on 17–18 February 1941.

[5] Between the hours of 1-2 am on 12 May 1941, in addition to attacking the neighbouring town of Spalding, three bombers conducted a separate aerial bombing assault on RAF Sutton Bridge airfield, sixteen bombs fell in total on parked Hawker Hurricanes, setting two on fire and causing severe damage to seven others.

[21] The Central Gunnery School (CGS) was formed on 6 November 1939 after the RAF recognised the need for both continuing and advanced instruction, initially for air gunners in Bomber Command.

[4][5] During the Battle of Britain, it became apparent that while aircrew had acquired essential flying skills, they had received little or no training in aerial gunnery.

This was a serious deficiency for inexperienced pilots, meaning such training and the teaching of deflection shooting had largely to be carried out or just picked up during operations, resulting in fewer combat successes.

[4] There was mutual advantage for the Bomber and Fighter wings to be based at the same location so that relevant gunnery flying exercises could be carried out together.

Thus, the Central Gunnery School transferred to Sutton Bridge on 1 April 1942, with its new wider remit, and remained until February 1944.

[4] Thus, its purpose was to give advanced training to experienced aircrew to become gunnery Instructors who were then posted to airfields around the country to use their newly acquired instructing skills.

By subsequent examination of the colour of the paint around the holes in the drogue, percentage hit rates of individual pilots could be assessed.

During the simulated attacks by Spitfires on Wellingtons, the bomber Gunnery Leaders were also trained using cine-film rather than live ammunition.