A BOOK by a Worcestershire author about the part played by RAF Defford during the Second World War is proving so successful it is already on its second print run and being released in America.

Top Secret Boeing by Dr Bob Shaw, of Broadway, near Evesham, provides an insight into the ‘secret airfield’ built in the grounds of Croome Park, near Worcester, where vital work on airborne radar was carried out. Croome Park is now a National Trust property.

The book was only launched in March this year, but has started a second print and is now on sale at the Museum of Flight in Seattle – the home of Boeing – and elsewhere across the United States.

Dr Shaw said: “Success of the book in America would be very appropriate as it tells the story of an elderly American airliner which proved an unlikely war-winning hero in RAF colours and was throughout a story of Anglo-American cooperation.”

The Boeing 247D, the only one of its kind in the UK, came to Britain as a demonstrator for the first American airborne radar based on the British invention, the Magnetron.

In 1942, Malvern became the national centre for wartime radar research and Defford was the airfield from which radar trials were flown.

The Boeing, now RAF serial number DZ203, proved to be ideal for radar research.

In January 1945 it performed the world’s first automatic blind landing – a project combining American radio aids with British radar developments.

Dr Shaw said: “In a little known story which has only recently come to light, there was a significant presence by the American scientists and military in Malvern and at Defford in the Vale of Evesham throughout the War.

“Close co-operation between Britain and the United States on radar development proved mutually beneficial and helped the allies to victory, and ensured a technological lead in the Cold War which followed.”

This and more stories from the secret airfield in Croome Park are revealed in Top Secret Boeing by Bob Shaw, published by the Defford Airfield Heritage Group.

It is on sale at Waterstones in Worcester; W H Smiths in Malvern and Worcester; Sedgeberrow Books in Pershore; on Amazon; and in the National Trust shop at Croome Park.