SWEET MEMORIES

RAF Bicester’s crucial role in the history of British warfare is cemented in the reminiscences of the men and women who worked and served here

THE LEGACY OF THE RAF, AND its very workings, lives on at Bicester Heritage today – even if the quick march of a cadet has been replaced by the rumble of a classic car engine.

The airfield’s first military occupier was the Royal Flying Corps, which became part of the new Royal Air Force in 1918 – at which point RAF Bicester officially became a training base. General Sir Hugh Trenchard, the RAF’s founding father, began his development and redesign of airfields in the south and southeast, part of his Home Defence Expansion Scheme.

Anticipating that warfare would be fought in the skies, he was key to the drive to expand and modernise the RAF. Following his experiences in World War One, he led the charge to initiate plans for the development of the ‘aircraft estate’. From 1925 RAF Bicester was transformed into a stateof-the-art bomber station, prior to the site expanding in 1936 as the country prepared for war with Germany. Trenchard’s Offensive Deterrence principles saw sites planned and laid out to minimise damage and fatalities in the event of an attack.

RAF Bicester is noted as being the most structurally representative of the bomber stations built along these lines. As Britain went to war, the site was home to the Hawker Hart, Bristol Blenheim and the first flight of the Handley Page Halifax fourengined bomber – the RAF’s first heavy bomber to enter production.

The Glider Pilot Regiment trained at Bicester prior to setting off for D-Day, Arnhem and, eventually, the Rhine Crossing. As the battle moved towards Berlin, RAF Bicester was transformed into a maintenance unit for ’planes and motor transport, home to more than 1000 personnel in ’43.

Post-war, the site was used for the aircraft breakdown and redistribution, prior to briefly becoming a medicalstorage facility for the US Air Forces in Europe in the 1970s. RAF Bicester has woven itself into thousands of ex-servicepeople’s lives, with many still holding close ties to the town of Bicester, long after the RAF departed.

Here we meet some of the amazing characters whose dedicated service has added to the magic of this former bomber station over the years.

The then Phyllis Cooper served with the WAF. THIS SPREAD

Michael Shepard’s work with the 71 Maintenance Unit was wide and varied.

MICHAEL SHEPARD

I WAS BORN IN DEVIZES IN Wiltshire, and I joined the RAF as a boy entrant aged 15 in 1952 – the same time as the Queen started her job. I’d go on to do 47 years of service. I went to Cosford in Shropshire for 18 months’ training, then got posted to Chivenor in North Devon as part of ‘Hunters and Sabres’. I then got posted to Raydon in Suffolk just before Suez in ’56, spent two years there, came back and went to Lyneham, Wiltshire – I now live on Lyneham Road, Bicester – and spent seven years there, which is unusual… Lyneham is close to my hometown, so I was basically living at home.

I got married, went out to Germany in ’65 for three years, and then got posted back to here in ’68. It was a bit of a shock coming back – moving out of a heated quarter in Germany to a quarter with an open fire over the road on Elderfield Road in Caversfield.

When I was posted at Bicester under the 71 Maintenance Unit, there were two elements as part of ‘Smash and Crash’. What we term ‘aircraft recovery’ was when we picked up crashed aircraft and then transported any that were being disposed of, so they went off for fire training or disposal.

We also worked with the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority), if it was investigating any civil aircraft and the wreckage needed to be moved to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. It was work where you spent all your life away – you were travelling all around the country doing different jobs… The other side was the repair side; if an aircraft got damaged by a bird strike or in an incident, teams went out and repaired the aircraft. If it was too big a job, then it usually ended up with us. It was a job of various elements – you never knew what you were going to get, particularly at a crash site. We also had an element called an ‘exhibition flight’. We’d support the RAF recruitment drive at the big shows – we had a Spitfire that we used to take out, a Hurricane, cockpits from a Lightning and Vulcan… There must have been about 80 people on our flight, and usually we were divided up into teams. They used to know where all the stops were on the motorway for transport caffs. You could have been sent anywhere that they wanted you to go.

I was at Bicester from 1968 to 1975. At the end of your service, the last three years, you can ask for a posting to an area that you would like to be in. Because we had bought a house in Bicester rather than living in a freezing quarter, we kept the house and rented it out to the Americans in Upper Heyford when we weren’t at home. It meant we had a guaranteed income – they were always looking for houses. I ended up at Abingdon for my final three years, before retiring.

MUM PHYLLIS (1923-2019) was originally from Ely in Cambridgeshire, and she enlisted in the RAF in 1941-42 aged 18. She was initially based in Cambridge, because her father was ill so she had to go home to Ely. Her basic training was in Morecambe in Lancashire – she had to march up and down the seafront, which killed her feet. She was what was known as a GD WAF, and she spent her time cycling around Cambridge with a dipping stick, checking the fuel levels on transport vehicles and aircraft. Her billet was in one of the universities, so she was staying in one of the colleges.

1944. She’d seen the build-up for D-Day – they were still flying Mosquito operations here at that time. She was GD in the stores, with a fairly unpleasant task – when the pilots didn’t come back from operations, they had to reissue the kit, and they often found personal effects. She said the girls she worked with were fantastic. Her billet was in Nissen huts. She said the mice could climb the inside of the hut and get into the kit bags hanging from the ceiling. She got to know the tailors, which meant her uniforms were the best on the base.

OPPOSITE The newly engaged Ken and Phyllis enjoy a break in Norfolk in 1946. BELOW Phyllis in 1942, outside her billet in a college in Cambridge.

While Mum was from a very wellto-do background, dad (1924-2020) was from Bow in London. His upbringing was pretty tough – I can still remember his road with cobblestones and terraced houses, with a factory at the end backing onto the Grand Union Canal. He joined the Air Training Corps and finished school at 16. War was declared, but nothing happened until September 1940, when the Blitz started – Black Friday.

All the workers at his dad’s mortuary quit, so my father ended up helping my grandfather there. That hardened him up! On his 18th birthday he signed up and he was off. He did his basic training with Tiger Moths and Miles Magisters, on Smith’s Lawn at the Guard’s Polo Club. He qualified as Flight Sergeant Observer/Bomb Aimer. He did his type conversion onto Wellington Bombers at RAF Westcott in Bucks before moving onto Aberdeen’s RAF Dyce for heavy conversion onto Short Stirlings.

Mum was at Bicester from early

Dad served at Bicester from early January 1945, having returned from instructing bomber crews in South Africa. He was a WO1 (Senior Warrant Officer), and he was put in charge of MT. By the time he arrived, the airfield was filling up with materials to go to Europe. He described the airfield as being so busy that you had to land aircraft between lorries.

Mum and dad met because dad’s friend Ken was keen on mum’s friend Sally, and you couldn’t go out unattended. Initially, mum was not keen. Ken could get petrol; dad purloined a Jeep as well as passes and flying kit from the stores –because it was absolutely freezing – and the four of them drove into London on a 24-hour pass.

Dad would cycle all the way to Cambridge when Mum was off on a weekend pass, or else they would go down to London because, despite rationing, my grandma could always get bacon and eggs. They got engaged on a train on the way back to Bicester on a 48-hour pass.

MY GRANDFATHER WAS A LOCAL building contractor – he was site agent for the main contractor both here at Bicester and at Heyford. He was born in Bicester, served in World War One and was over in Africa. I never knew him; he died in 1940. He was looking after Bicester during the Trenchard expansion period, ordering materials in.

At the same time, he was building all the red-brick semi-detached houses up the Buckingham Road – and if you looked closely, you might be able to spot some War Departmentmarked materials in those properties, because materials that were left over ‘disappeared’. When the guys worked out in Upper Heyford, they’d bike there every day regardless of the weather. They’d have little trailers on their bikes with their tools in – they probably did the same here up at Bicester.

During the war, as with most local building contractors, my grandfather was also a joiner – they were undertakers. They were given the contract for Bicester, and had to come up and recover the bodies from the Blenheims and make them reasonably presentable, put them in a casket and return them to the RAF. There was one particularly messy incident, and my granddad turned to my dad and said: “That’s it, I’m done with this. We are not going to be undertakers any longer.” With that, they stopped.

After the site was completely constructed, granddad became the first maintenance term contractor, so he was doing the repairs and patching up. We found the box that he had kept that contained paint colours, time sheets, information about local surveyors… but it nearly broke him. Payments were always queried and delayed, but he had to pay his workforce.

My grandfather was close to my cousin Ben by marriage – who also looked after the business when my dad was conscripted for war – and Ben used to come over from Wycombe and see them. One day all three went up to the site and came across a wagon full of coal – that was when the railway tracks were still here. For some reason, they had the bright idea of trying to move it – so they got it started, but then realised they didn’t know how to stop this 20-tonne wagon. In the end, they had to scramble on it and jump on the brakes.

A perfect storm of 12 months saw the world outside RAF

Words Jack Phillips

Bicester’s perimeter fence leave a lasting impression that still endures today

Bicester’s perimeter fence leave a lasting impression that still endures today

BACK IN JANUARY 1963, RAF Bicester was well and truly out of action. Planes were grounded due to the weather, and only one arrived during the entire month – because, being a de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, it had the benefit of skis.

That first, slow month rather set the tone for 1963 for the site, although it was hoped to be a year of expansion, what with new Married Quarters expected at a time when other units were routinely being disbanded at worst, or merged at best. However, the world outside the perimeter fence was about to leave an impression so long lasting that it endures today.

Gerry and the Pacemakers were inadvertently about to turn Rodgers and Hammerstein into the writers of the world’s most famous football song, and that city’s most famous sons were about to take over the world.

A humble Kiwi set about making a name for himself from a lock-up in West London, and just up the road the Mini was about to get another shot of Grand Prix-derived power. Jaguar’s saloon gained independence, Morgan broke from tradition and Rover pushed the envelope.

Across the Channel, Ferdinand would perfect his Porsche family recipe, and a tractor maker in Sant’Agata Bolognese had Ferrari in his sights. The boom was a decade old and still blooming, and the shadow of war over Europe was well and truly fading, although it was ensconced once again Stateside.

It wasn’t until Cliff Richard’s London bus was moved on from the top of the charts in March that 1963 really kicked in. He and The Shadows spent eight weeks at number one with various hits from his Summer Holiday movie, with only brief intermissions off top spot.

During that time, as early as

January, Lotus gave the automotive year a bolt when it officially announced that its not-so-secret work hotting up the Ford Cortina was complete. “Introducing the Consul Cortina Special developed by Lotus” stumbled Walter Hayes’ press release, adding that Colin Chapman would be taking the car racing via the talents of Jim Clark, Peter Arundell and Trevor Taylor. “Three of Britain’s top racing men,” Ford said.

Jimmy spoke straight to the target market when he added: “I reckon she’ll be a real hairy smoker by the time Chapman has finished with her.” Teething problems meant it’d be nine months until the Lotus Cortina could be homologated to go racing in any meaningful capacity.

A footnote was added to Bicester’s history on February 28 – by which point the airstrip was just about back in action – when the chairman of Bicester council and the station commander, Wing Commander DK Kempston, traded plaques for each others’ officers in a special ceremony in the Officers’ Mess.

Rather more newsworthy was Ferrari’s latest sports car challenger, although it was not yet for public consumption; the pretty new 250P lapped Monza in front of the press, ready for Ludovico Scarfiotti and Lorenzo Bandini to take one to victory at Le Mans in the summer.

The annual start of the car-launch season at the Geneva Motor Show in March gave Mercedes-Benz the chance to unveil the latest model to assume the fabled SL moniker, and Lancia its brilliant V4 Fulvia in initial Berlina form.

If the best of the Fulvia was yet to come, the 230SL was a stepchange from the softer 190, a model that struggled to shake off the shackles of its bigger and more exclusive 300 brother. The Mercedes stole the Geneva show mere weeks after the final 190 and 300 were built.

Known as the ‘Pagoda’ thanks to the roofline of its hard-top, the car’s capacious boot was one of the headlines – a salesman spent the week loading and unloading various suitcases to show off its continentcrossing potential. Only just a little late for Cliff’s Summer Holiday, which was enjoying the first of its three stints at number one.

Two rapid little gems broke out in April, homologation specials aimed squarely at sporting motorists onand off-track. At Monza, Alfa Romeo revealed the Ti Super and took the quadrifoglio mainstream. Until now only the race teams wore the fourleaf clover, but the lightweight, pepped-up and stripped-out Ti Super was worthy of the honour.

In the UK, with less fanfare, John Cooper won his battle to give the Mini more power, and so was born the S. The extra 80-odd cubic centimetres helped Sir John Whitmore to a class win on its debut, at the International Trophy round at Silverstone.

Jim Clark won the Formula 1 race that weekend, but one famous name was still missing with injury from the entry list: ‘The Boy’ Stirling

Moss. There was movement on that front, though, and George Harrison’s hero would have heard a breakingout band called The Beatles on the radio on the way down to Goodwood from London on May 1. With From Me To You, the Liverpudlians had gone one better than their previous single, Love Me Do, to their first sales-chart number one. This despite the New Musical Express calling the single “below par”.

In Sussex, Moss slipped back into a racing car for the first time since his near-fatal crash almost a year ago to the day, in May 1962 – and a few laps later on the same circuit, in a Lotus 19 rather than an 18 as he’d been 12 months before, he would inadvertently create another part of his legacy. He decided he had to retire, and, despite all those wins, he would do so without a Formula 1 World Championship title to his name. That immortalised him as undoubtedly the greatest driver never to win the World title.

“I had to think,” he told his engineers. “I had to give orders to myself; here I’ll brake, here I must change down. I used to look at the rev counter without taking my eyes off the road – not only that, I could see the rev counter and the road and a friend waving to me, all at the same time. I’ve lost that. It’s gone.”

And so was Moss from competitive racing; his old mate Graham Hill would end the month with his first of five Monaco Grand Prix wins.

Eusébio’s opening goal for Benfica at Wembley couldn’t deny AC Milan its first European Cup, while Rootes finally released the rear-engined pocket-rocket Imp, the corporation’s take on the ‘little car’, into the wake of Mini mania.

The focus for the staff at RAF Bicester was to try (and ultimately fail) to work out how to stop birds from taking up lodging in the hangars; not even the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries had the answer.

BELOW Seminal artist’s second album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan took a while to truly be appreciated.

With the racing season in full swing there was respite from new cars, but in Stuttgart something remarkable was happening. The 356’s replacement had been under development since 1960, and the twoseater had just become a 2+2 with an extra pair of cylinders – targeting, ambitiously, the summer of 1963.

A prototype, known as The Bat, had been running, and Ferdinand Porsche began formulating his plan: the 901 and 902, a four-pot, with three variants of roof from hard-top to cabriolet via what would eventually be christened the Targa.

BELOW Rootes’ rear-engined Imp was the corporation’s take on the ‘little car’, in the wake of Mini mania.

BELOW The Mini received more power thanks to Cooper, while the Porsche 911 made its epochdefining debut.

Mechanically, Hans Mezger reset the Porsche engine lineage and jumped from the 821 engine to the 901, with a dry sump to reduce its size. It wouldn’t be running for another 12 months, however, and would require the ruthless projectmanagement skills of a young Ferdinand Piëch.

Prototype 5, its ‘Type 901’ plate slightly askew, had the honour of introducing the 356’s replacement to the world, and rather stole the limelight from Stuttgart competitor Mercedes-Benz’s new 600 at the Frankfurt Motor Show on September 13 – just nine days after Bruce inaugurated McLaren Motor Racing Ltd back in the UK. Suits bustled around the 901, being careful to mind the Mezger engine on a stand rather than in the tail, and the orders poured in by the book-load.

A month later, Peugeot took umbrage following the Paris Salon, and Porsche buckled to the pressure that only Peugeots could have a zero in the middle of their name in France. The 911 became de rigueur in late 1964 and for ever more.

The Le Mans-winning 250P’s hard-top iteration also took its bow at the Paris show. Ferrari’s 250LM was expected to replace the GTO and run with the GTs to give the Prancing Horse the chance of outright victories with the P and class wins with the LM the world over – only for the FIA to homologate it as another prototype and scupper those well laid plans.

Jaguar got the jump on the next slew of remarkable cars to launch in this remarkable 12 months, by rolling out the S-type in advance of London’s marquee car show at Earls Court. The solid-axle Mk2 had run its course, both with buyers and developmentally, and the vast MkX had made it look outdated because of its independent rear suspension. The answer was a refined cut-and-shut: the Mk2’s front end melded with a trimmeddown MkX rear. It might not be as complete a design as the Mk2, but it had the desired effect upon launch, and shifted around 25,000 units over the course of a few years.

With such an array of cars under covers at Earls Court, there was only so much thunder it could steal – not least from Rover’s dream team of designers. Auntie Rover’s homely P4 was consigned to history by the sharp styling of the 2000 P6, and clever front suspension created a driving feel like nothing else on the road and fed into the Rover range – indeed Range Rover – for decades. Full synchromesh gears meant no more double declutching, so changing was a breeze; more economical than the bigger-engined saloons at a time when fuel prices were edging up, it was a smash.

Oddly, that same day Triumph revealed its take on the smaller luxury car, and landed upon an identical name. Penned by Triumph’s own star, Giovanni Michelotti, that maker’s 2000 fell uncomfortably between the sharp suits of the 1960s and outdated, rounder cars of what came before, but unlike the Rover it could boast a monocoque and two extra engine cylinders. For some, the latter was the clincher.

Boosted power also underpinned the new Aston Martin, with Tadek Marek’s 4.0-litre engine fitted as standard in what was otherwise a DB4. Still, it is the model that has shaped, and in many ways saved, Aston Martin from falling by the wayside like many other perennially ailing marques. After all, only James

Bond can make Astons disappear. In truth, the DB5 was little more than standardising the Vantage-spec DB4, but more than 1000 were sold.

Less successful was Morgan’s plastic +4+, a Lotus Elan-like sports car that on paper looked fine enough. Two Weber carburettors produced a rorty 105bhp, but three years on from Earls Court, Morgan called it a day midway through the intended production run of 50.

There was a brief flurry of activity at RAF Bicester as autumn took hold, too, and You’ll Never Walk Alone topped the charts to Bill Shankly’s delight. Wing Commander SM Russell took over as station commander after Wing Commander Kempston’s posting to Biggin Hill, becoming the 32nd person to take the position in the site’s history. He lasted a month shy of three years in charge, and his tenure began by taking ownership of the first of the promised new Married Quarters. It was he who hosted HRH Queen Elizabeth II’s visit in 1965.

The automotive year of years was still not done, mind, and when the specialist press moved onto the centre of Italy’s universe, Turin, Iso showed a glimpse of what was to come with a prototype by Giotto Bizzarrini. Aggressive styling was matched by a voluminous V8, and in 1965 it was eventually unleashed as the Grifo.

Former Ferrari designer Bizzarrini, a key player in the Palace Revolt when staff downed pencils and left Enzo, had certainly been busy, not least helping Ferruccio Lamborghini make a departure from producing tractors. The prototype of his first foray into GT cars, the 350GTV, had a heavy Bizzarrini influence, including the chassis and 3.5-litre V8, while Franco Scaglione designed the body. Such was the response at the Turin Motor Show that tractors gave way to supercars.

America would look less fondly on these bizarre 12 months. The Vietnam War showed no signs of letting up, and JFK was assassinated, yet there is a lasting legacy – that of Martin Luther King’s speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In cars, the new Corvette hit showrooms and the Jeep Wagoneer took the 4x4 upmarket, but most importantly African-American Wendell Scott won in NASCAR –despite the worst attempts of the authorities to deny it. Beatlemania arrived on Boxing Day with I Want To Hold Your Hand at number one in the Billboard charts, and Bob Dylan coasted into the headlines.

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan took months to truly be appreciated – far quicker than the 60 years 1963 has taken to bask in its own glory.