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Hornchurch Country Park is the former site of Sutton's Farm airfield which opened on 3rd October 1915, from which biplanes of the Royal Flying Corps defended London in the First World War. Lieutenant William Leefe-Robinson took off from the airfield on the night of 2nd September 1916 and shot down the first German Zeppelin airship to crash over British soil. For this action he received the Victoria Cross. The airfield closed after the First World War, but the land was requisitioned in 1923 because of the expansion of the RAF and the airfield opened as a much larger fighter station, RAF Hornchurch. Fighter squadrons from Hornchurch were prominent in the Battle of France over Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain and it became one of the most famous Spitfire stations in Fighter Command. The airfield was ideally located in bomb alley to cover both London and the Thames corridor from German air attacks.