What you see here are three booklets of the “Air Route Information – India” booklets issued sometime in 1945 in the far east. These booklets are a collection of loose sheets tied together with filing thread – the sheets composing of airfield information pertaining to a particular route. For example in the first booklet, the airfields covering the route from Drigh Road to Chittagong are put together. The Second booklet has information about the Mediterranean, middle eastern and western Indian airfields. Between the three, there are 60-70 airfields from the Indian sub-continent, and another 15-20 or so related to the Egypt, Greece and the Middle East.
How do the contents of these booklets look like? Well here is a sample page for Chittagong airfield
And another for Drigh Road
Getting hold of these booklets is incredibly rare because it says right on the cover “This folder must be detroyed if likely to fall into enemy or neutral hands”. Yet it appears that some of these booklets were taken home by returning war veterans. Getting hands on one of them is in itself a rare event. Getting hands on three of them – is as close to getting to win the lottery. Currently all three are with the site archives. (Procured at a considerable financial cost – if i may add).
If there is an airfield you are looking up – write to us admin AT rafcommands DOT com. Stating the airfield information you are looking for, the project it is needed for. If that airfield exists in these booklets, We can discuss a reasonable donation fee that will help the site maintenance or otherwise an exchange donation of archival material/photograph/books that may be useful for the site. I am mostly interested in RAF operations related to India , Ceylon and Burma at this point.