Planned as an RAF bomber station with a grass airfield, concrete perimeter track and hardstandings, Middle Wallop opened as a training base in April 1940, before construction was complete. Used as an RAF day-fighter and night-fighter base during 1940-43, the station was allocated to the Eighth Air Force during August-September 1942 as a potential fighter base, but was never occupied by Eighth Air Force units. The airfield was improved in 1942 with two Sommerfeld Track runways, when dispersals included nine small pens and 16 double pens. By 1943, when the station was transferred to the Ninth Air Force, the original five C hangars had been supplemented by 16 blister hangars. HQ IX Fighter Command occupied the station from November 1943 to July 1944, as did the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group equipped with Spitfires, P-51s and F-5s. HQ XIX Air Support Command was also resident from January to July 1944. Returned to the RAF in July 1944, the station again became briefly a night-fighter base and then a fighter servicing base until taken over by the Royal Navy during 1945-46. Again a multi-role RAF station from 1946 to 1957, it was transferred to the Army Air Corps (AAC) in 1958 and has since been home to HQ AAC and the Army Aviation Centre. It has also been home since 1987 to the Museum of Army Flying.