In message , at 18:37:03 on Sun, 25 Sep
2016, Mizter T remarked:

iirc it was farmland which was commandeered as a wartime airstrip.

Which was only a pretence conjured up by Harold Balfour and others in
order to establish a fact on the ground - i.e. a big aerodrome - using
wartime requisition powers.

Even if that was true (I hope you have some citations for that) the
point is that it was *farmland* and thus outside the urban area of
London at that time.
--
Roland Perry