RESPONSIBILITY for the running of an important bomb storage facility has been transferred to the United States Air Force at RAF Fairford.

Fairford has just been modernised and improved to make it Nato's most important forward European operating base.

And now the administrative control of RAF Welford, which is near Newbury, has been transferred to it.

The Welford base was built in the early 1940s as one of several wartime airfields serving the Southern Counties.

It was originally intended as a base for No 92 group Bomber Command.

With the need to find bases for the newly arriving United States Army Air Force forces, Welford was selected, and the first contingent of Americans arrived there in September 1943.

During WWII, the airfield was used for a number of operations, including the launching of Horsa Gliders on D Day.

In the early 1960s, the USAF built a bomb storage area, and during the Gulf War, RAF Welford played a major part supplying aircraft involved in the air campaign against Saddam Hussein.

Lt Jake Martinez, the USAF spokesman at RAF Fairford, said: "RAF Welford will continue to be used as a weapons storage facility for the USAF, and will continue its administrative and manpower alignment under RAF Fairford.

"The USAF plans to upgrade many of the storage units, facilities and work areas on RAF Welford."