Lost Airfields by
Mark McArthur-Christie a Bampton Archive Publication
Front cover: North/South runway RAF Broadwell, looking south
In the area around Bampton are the remains of many of the airfields that played such an important part in the last war. This publication visits some of them and revives memories of their past.
3
4
Contents Where the past touches the present
7
How this book came about - or nearly didn’t
8
Bikes and bases
9
RAF Chimney
11
A little perspective
13
RAF Akeman Street
15
RAF Broadwell
17
The RAF’s revenge
20
RAF Windrush
23
RAF Stanton Harcourt
26
RAF Little Rissington
28
RAF Kelmscott
30
RAF Southrop
33
RAF Chipping Norton
36
Serendipity and sausages
38
RAF Down Ampney
41
The good Samaritan
43
MMC musings
47
What next?
48
5
Where the past touches the present “History is an ever-present part of our daily lives. We walk on its paths and in its footsteps without even thinking.�
RAF Broadwelln no.2 runway looking west 6 6
Where the past touches the present “History is an ever-present part of our daily lives. We walk on its paths and in its footsteps without even thinking.” Ten minutes west of Bampton, you can walk on the original concrete of of a WWII runway from which men took off in flimsy Horsa gliders to liberate Normandy. The date was 6 June 1944. D-Day. Ten minutes east, and you can stand by the gatehouse of the RAF base where Churchill flew to the Casablanca conference, and 15 Halifaxes from 35 & 76 Squadron mounted the July 1941 attack on the German battleship Scharnhorst. Today, both these disused RAF bases, that played so critical a part in WWII, lie forgotten, decaying and derelict. RAF Broadwell’s old west-east runway is now a minor road linking the A361 with Kencot. RAF Stanton Harcourt’s runways are broken up and submerged under feet of water in gravel pits. The only remaining length of them lies next to landfill mounds near Dix Pit, West Oxfordshire’s municipal rubbish dump. Neither base is marked with any memorial. Both are slowly being demolished for building and track hardcore, used for storage and farm machinery or simply left to rot. In neither case are there gates, entrance fees or guidebooks. Anyone who is interested can walk in on the footpaths and see history for themselves. Oxfordshire’s countryside is littered with the recent military past. Wartime RAF bases, bomb dumps (one of the most significant, outside Eynsham, now passed daily by Bampton’s No 19 bus to Oxford, most passengers completely unaware), and even civil defence firing slits in a wall in Witney’s Mill Street. History is left to speak for itself only for the people who take time to listen. This is what this booklet attempts to do. It aims to give those disused and derelict RAF bases a voice, albeit a small one. It sets out a (very) little of the history of the county’s wartime history and explains where the past can still be seen, touching the present. There are others in Bampton far better qualified to write about the history of RAF bases in the county. There are others who are far better able to photograph them. This is simply a record, a very personal perspective and a call to the present from the past remember... Mark McArthur-Christie mark@freemanchristie.com July 2012
7
How this book came about or nearly didn’t. I had originally planned to put up an exhibition in Bampton’s Vesey Room showing pictures I’d taken of disused RAF bases over the past ten years. I cheerfully agreed to the suggestion without even thinking to check I still had the photographs. I’d spent many happy and thoughtful Saturdays crawling around derelict buildings and walking down runways that hadn’t heard a propeller since 1947. I had masses of pictures. Only, I hadn’t. When I went to sort through the images, I realised that I’d lost nearly all of them. Pictures of RAF Broadwell, Grove, Akeman Street, Southrop, Windrush, Stanton Harcourt - all the local bases I’d wanted to feature. They’re all easily reachable from Bampton, so they were perfect. But they were also missing. Opening a bottle of wine and sitting down with my head in my hands, I realised what had happened. I’d sent my old laptop back for a minor repair, thinking I’d backed up all the files on it . I hadn’t. I’d forgotten to back up my “images” folder.
Initial panic, followed by realisation that I’d have to go back and re-take them all. Five years’ worth of photographs. So, during what passed for the Summer of 2012, I’ve revisited each of the bases I’d originally planned to feature. I’ve been amazed by how much has changed. Bases where I’d been able to walk freely are now behind barbed wire fences. There was more vandalism, more graffiti. Perhaps these were the reasons for the barbed wire. Some buildings have completely disappeared - the control tower at RAF Chipping Norton, for example, is now a pile of hardcore. Some had decayed to a point where they were barely standing. Others are partially demolished. I can often see the bricks rolled into tracks or used as foundation hardcore. It seems such a shame. Not that these bases should be left unaltered, but simply that, to me, they deserve marking in some way. That’s what I hope to do, in some small way, with this book.
88
o 8
Bikes and Bases For me, exploring old RAF bases and motorcycling are inseparably linked. I have always ridden motorcycles. Being a rider is something I am rather than just something I do.
9
9
Setting off for RAF Little Rissington
I discovered my first RAF base in April 2006. I was riding home after a long run out on minor, twisting roads to Tintern Abbey in South Wales.
I didn’t know the half of it. I had no idea I lived in the middle of one of the most densely airfielded areas in the UK.
I’d taken the turn for Gloucester and swung the bike over the downs near Chedworth. Cutting off the A361, I was puzzled by the road I found myself on. It was dead straight, with a concrete edge. It looked and felt like a runway. I stopped and saw an old control tower set in the middle of the field next to the road. It didn’t make sense. What was it doing there?
So, as Pip, my partner, was studying at the time and often away, I got on my bike and rode. I used the internet, OS maps and my nose to find others. Stanton Harcourt. Kingston Bagpuize. Chedworth. Out of the way bases like Southrop and Akeman Street. My Russian-made Ural combination has been the perfect exploring companion.
I got off the bike, and, in front of me, I saw a long, straight, wide strip of rippled and rutted concrete. I climbed a bank on the other side of the road and saw the same thing, stretching as far as I could see.
It goes places a solo (ridden by me, at least) simply won’t. It tackles the usual tracks, ruts and pits without even pausing. It was built in Siberia, so snow and ice don’t even slow it down. It’s simple and robust enough to take being bounced around. I can sling my camera in the sidecar and there’s space for anything else I fancy too.
What was an abandoned airbase complete with runways and a control tower - doing in the middle of West Oxfordshire? How had I ridden past it twice a week for two years and not even spotted it?
I take my BMW sometimes, but it doesn’t feel quite right. You’ll see what I mean in the section on RAF Broadwell. I started exploring on the Ural and haven’t stopped since.
10
RAF Chimney Not all bases saw action - or were intended to. Tucked down a tiny lane near Tadpole Bridge is a partly sunken brick building. Today, it is full of rubbish, rubble and weeds. The walls are covered in graffiti and, in the room’s corners are discarded bottles, burned-out barbecues and spray-cans.
11
Chimney decoy entrance
In WWII, this was RAF Brize Norton. At least, it was if you were a German pilot. “RAF Chimney” (known as “Q66”) was a dummy or decoy base. Q and K sites were part of a network of dummy bases and deception ruses that covered the UK, intended to draw enemy fire from real bases. They were built by a group of specialists known simply as “Colonel T u r n e r ’ s Department”, built by prop-makers from Shepperton Studios and staffed by civil defence and military personnel.
Col Turner’s Department built around 170 Q sites. Each was manned by two or three men who controlled the lights of their dummy airfield from a brick-built bunker on-site. As night fell, the men would shelter in the bunker and turn on the ‘runway’ lights. They’d use a searchlight mounted on the top of the bunker to fool the enemy that there were aircraft m o v i n g around the ‘airfield’.
Although Brize Norton In 1939, Royal was bombed Engineer Colonel by enemy Sir John Turner ‘planes, was appointed as Chimney the head of a escaped. But, national deception sitting in the programme, bunker at creating dummy n i g h t , RAF bases, often deliberately on the sites of old presenting a WWI airfields. Inside the control room at Chimney target, as Some sites (K e n e m y sites) were bombers circled overhead, it must have intended to look like real RAF bases in been a terrifying place to sit out the war. daylight. They had fake aircraft, buildings and huge pieces of cloth painted to look like In Chimney’s case, the bunker is all that hangar roofs. Others, “Q” sites, were remains. You can find it just off the lane intended to resemble an airfield at night - with that links the Buckland Road with Chimney. great success. “RAF Chimney” was one of these. 12
A little perspective I fancied a ride this evening. It’s spring. It’s light. It’s Wednesday. It’s been a bitch of a day in the office
13 13
Old fuel pump at Stanton Harcourt
A little perspective
“Oooh, I was expecting someone else!”she said.
I fancied a ride this evening. It’s The same thought clearly occurred to all of us at the same time. spring. It’s light. It’s Wednesday. It’s A few more minutes passed while we been a bitch of a day in the office. That’s good enough for me. I had to drop our entry fee for the Village Quiz in at a neighbour ’s house so thought I’d call by on the Ural. As I set off, there was still enough light not to worry the eccentric Russian Ural electrics and the lanes beckoned. The edges of the sky were just starting to crinkle and dim, but that was it.
struggled – hard – to recover from the laughter. Negotiations were made as the complexities of change from the various notes was worked out. Then, goodnights exchanged, Reece invited me over to see his new machine. This was an old barn-find Divvy 600 he’d just finished restoring. And what a job he’d made of it. Remember those wonderful black and gold JPS Lotus F1 cars from the 1970s? Same colour. Same coachlines. Gorgeous.
Living in Bampton has a tendency to resemble The Archers from time to time. We were chatting away when we both This was one of them. turned to listen to the lampost-shooting thump of a big single. The whumpI arrived on our neighbour ’s doorstep whump-whump got closer and a just as another neighbour and fellow Yamaha SRX600 pulled up. rider, Reece, got there too. Both of us clutched our Quiz cash in our hands. I “Evening Mike. How’s things?” knocked. We exchanged bike chat as we waited for her to answer the door. So now there’s me, the Ural, Reece and After a few minutes, she flung the door open, clearly somewhat flustered. There she stood, in her nightgown with a towel around her head, obviously straight out of the bath. And to find two men at her door, holding out a handful of notes each.
his Divvy and Mike and the SRX. Bikes and helmets littering the lane, chatting away where the Downton Abbey production team had been ragging Lady Mary Crawley’s wedding coach just a couple of weeks earlier. If only the viewers could see it now.
14
So much for a quiet early evening ride. By the time we’d finished yarning, the sky was purpling and the stars were clocking in for the night. I like riding at night, so quite happily thumbed the starter and headed into the lanes. Ural therapy.
It was a clear night and a clear sky. I stopped by the signpost and turned the lights off and looked up. I always love seeing the Plough – it was the first constellation I learned to recognise as a child and I always look for it. It’s a sort of constant for me.
The Ural is no motorway machine. Its natural habitat is backlanes and B roads. Suits me. I hate motorways on a bike.
There it shone, just as it had at my first winter evensong as Head Chorister, my first night at University when I was utterly petrified and the evening of the day I started my own business when I was so scared I simply sat on a bench and shook. And so many evenings since.
This evening, the inhabitants came out to watch the silly man on the combo. I lost count of the rabbits, two foxes sitting on the verge, clearly sniggering. And, best of all, an twoowl flypast. I ended up between Bampton and the wonderfully named Chimney, just by the old WWII decoy site for RAF Brize Norton. A neat idea – string a series of electric lights to resemble a runway’s flightpath just a few miles from the real base. The idea was to decoy enemy bombers away from the real target towards the fake field. I wonder what action it saw. The bunker is still there, although full of rubbish now.
I grinned as a thought hit me and the day’s stress drained like an open lock gate. I raised a hand in salute, turned the lights on and turned the bars for home. Somehow the stuff that scares me doesn’t come close to sitting in a concrete bunker in a field on a darkened flood plain waiting to get bombed. By deliberate mistake. I take life far too seriously sometimes. April 2012
15
RAF Akeman Street RAF Akeman Street doesn’t announce itself with flashy concrete runways, a derelict control tower or even a disused guard house.
All that remains of RAF Akeman Street's buildings 16 16
RAF Akeman Street
Looking at my map, just outside Witney, on the north-east of the town, I spotted what looked like a huge, circular path.
This is an airfield one needs to go looking for. But it’s worth it, even if only for the seclusion and sense of peace that’s there today.
Good job, too. Unless you were looking, there is no way you’d spot RAF Akeman Street until you were standing in the middle of it.
Originally a relief landing ground (RLG) for advanced pilot training, there’s little to see now unless you’re one of the initiated. If you know what you’re looking for, you’ll spot the telltale red bricks of the decayed blast shelter on the southern approach, the peri track and a couple of other buildings, now given over to equestrian bits and bobs.
The runways at Akeman street were grass, so there’s nothing of them left, although the SW-NE 950 yard runway would have run broadly where the footpath to Chasewood Farm is today. Walk up the gated, gravel path from the Crawley-Leafield road and you’ll pass the remains of the blast shelter on your right, buried in undergrowth and elder.
When I first visited Akeman Street in ’08, a few of the buildings still Seventy years ago, stood, with one or two you’d have seen foundation plinths too. RAF Akeman Street perimeter track twin-engined Now, there are just two Airspeed Oxfords, buildings. One seems to Harvards and the be a disused motor odd Tiger Moth parked around the transport building. The other is perhaps a perimeter. Today, you’re far more likely to generator hut. They’re fenced off now and see a VW Golf belonging to one of the used for horse feed, rubbish and a few farm allotment keepers who grow vegetables on bits and bobs. the airfield’s south area. But Akeman Street is worth visiting for the view I visited here first in 2008. By now I’d across Oxfordshire, the sense of peace and become addicted to peering at Ordnance just to spend a few moments thinking and Survey maps, looking for the tell-tale signs remembering. of perimeter tracks, the cross-marks of 17 disused runways and groupings of large 17 17 buildings.
RAF Broadwell Just a few miles west of Bampton is one of the most significant RAF bases from WWII. RAF Broadwell was one of the three key bases for D-Day’s gliderborne troops, along with RAF Tarrant Rushton and RAF Blakehill Farm.
w
18 18
RAF Broadwell - control tower
RAF Broadwell Just a few miles west of Bampton is one of the most significant RAF bases from WWII. RAF Broadwell was one of the three key bases for D-Day’s gliderborne troops, along with RAF Tarrant Rushton and RAF Blakehill Farm. Today, you can still walk on the runways from which 32 Horsa gliders of 512 Squadron RAF and 21 of RAF 575 Squadron were towed behind Douglas Dakota aircraft, carrying men from the 9th Battalion, Parachute Regiment to attack the Merville Battery on the Normandy coast. This battery of obsolete, but still lethal, First World War 14/19 Tschechisch 100 mm guns was trained on Sword beach. Its destruction was critical if British landing troops were not to incur huge casualties. D-Day anniversary at Broadwell, 2012
D-Day at Broadwell Tension rose quickly at the end of May for the invasion of the continent was not far off. Orders were given to seal the station and impound all mail as of 14.00 on June 2, for Broadwell was hosting over 1,000 troops for the Normandy landing. Upon receipt of the executive order on June 5 a final briefing for those taking part was arranged for 20.00. Fifty-nine crews attended, including six spare crews, for Operation Tonga. Present at the briefing was the AOC, 46 Group, who stressed the vital importance of the venture before the crews and troops boarded their aircraft.
At 2314hrs on 5 June 1944, Wing Commander Coventry of 512 Sqn lifted the nose of the first Dakota off Broadwell’s runway and pointed it towards Normandy. 575 Sqn’s Wing Commander Jefferson was airborne at 2329. And by 2336, all aircraft were in the air, heading for their turning point between Chipping Norton and Banbury. By 0500 on June 6th the Merville Battery was destroyed.
19
From the Parachute Pegasus Archive:
Regiment’s
“On the 5th June 1944, all thirty-three* of their Dakotas were deployed in tandem with 575 Squadron, carrying paratroopers of the 9th Parachute Battalion, who were tasked with the destruction of the Merville Battery. Due to low cloud and navigational difficulties, all units of the 6th Airborne Division were scattered during the drop, but the problem was acute for the 9th Battalion, mainly because the pathfinders who were to illuminate their zone were dropped too far from it to be able to set up their beacons. Consequently only a quarter of the battalion landed on target. All of 512 Squadron returned safely to base, though they had little time to rest as they returned to Normandy during the evening of D-Day, towing eighteen Horsa gliders. Some losses were sustained on this mission, Operation Mallard; one aircraft was damaged by flak and another was forced to ditch on the return flight. Five more Dakotas took part in a resupply flight that night, one of which was shot down. Another was lost during a resupply flight on the 7th June, but not through enemy action, rather a tragic case of misidentification on behalf of friendly naval forces below. As the month progressed, the Squadron was called to participate in further resupply missions, but no more losses were suffered.
“On the 17th June, 512 Squadron flew the ground crews of 124 Wing to the B6 Coulombes airstrip in France, and on the return flight evacuated one hundred and thirty-eight wounded men so that they could receive proper hospital treatment in Britain. For 46 Group this duty, of flying men and equipment into Normandy and removing the wounded to England, became a daily routine henceforth. These valuable flights continued without respite for several months.” Pegasus Archive * The original RAF records from Broadwell indicate 32 rather than 33 gliders As well as taking troops to war, Broadwell and the nearby hospital at Bradwell Grove brought them home again: Today, Broadwell is, like Tarrant Rushton and Blakehill Farm, deserted. But, take a tiny lane leading off the A361 and you can drive down the same runway from which Wing Commander Coventry took off on the eve of D-Day. The control tower still stands, as do many other motor transport, accommodation and technical buildings. When I first visited Broadwell a few years ago, one could still see the domestic site buildings. Now, they’re behind a slab-steel gate and completely closed off from the public. Driving down the minor road that leads up from Shilton Ford and across to the A361, one of the redbrick generator buildings is still standing and easily seen. The steel warning sign on the wall facing the road is fading and barely legible.
20
The RAF’s revenge RAF Broadwell was one of the major glider launch sites for the DDay and Arnhem landings. It’s a place that’s pivotal in the history of the country. 512 and 575 squadrons were based here. This is one of the many stories I’ve read about Broadwell. It’s about a paratrooper called Harry Lingard: “Harry Lingard’s story, like many of his war time colleagues, has remained untold. He was in the 1st Airborne Air Landing Light Reg. R.A and was a Dispatch rider and Signaler. On 18th September 1944 along with four other men, a jeep, a motor bike and ammunition he was loaded into a Horsa glider at R.A.F. Broadwell and towed off behind a Dakota to Arnhem where they had a perfect landing in the dropping zone.
More than relics left behind at Broadwell No. A few derelict buildings. A few on the edge of a stoneworks, screened away from sight. Fields. Now that’s fine, but wouldn’t some recognition for men like Harry Lingard and the thousands of other men who flew as pilots, aircrew and troops from there be appropriate?
On about the third day at Arnhem Harry witnessed the Dakota that was being used to drop the provisions was on fire, nevertheless continued to carry out its mission until the damage was so great it crashed. Harry later learned that for this completed mission the pilot, Flt Lt Lord, was awarded a posthumous V.C. for his bravery.”
Now, there are Health & Safety signs and steel shutters, wire fences blocking anyone’s view of the old guardhouses and barracks, where men left, in vast numbers, in rickety wooden gliders to get shot at. Kind of hazardous. But nowadays it seems a few tipper trucks pose more of a threat to life and limb. Bit of perspective, anyone? Trespassers will be, yeah, whatever.
The bravery of the pilots flying out of Broadwell was quite incredible. So, as a major historical site, at Broadwell today there must be plaques, memorials, signs, that sort of stuff? So I thought I would go and take a look.
The remaining barrack buildings on the north side of the site are used as a dump for the quarrying firm behind the wire gate and HSE notices. 21
The runways in the pictures intersect on the road that now cuts the airfield in two.When I visited first, that’s where I parked my bike – right at the heart of the site. Not a good idea as it turned out. Looking at Broadwell today, it’s hard to believe this is where we launched the most crucial attack of WWII.Now the control tower just stands in the middle of a field while it falls down. Bloody gets in the way of the ploughing – got to go round it, haven’t you? The view over the principal runway is now just the view over a field. Standing in the old tower, you can see the lime in the mortar leeching out, creating stalactites and calcifying the window ledges too. But the RAF still have a few tricks up their gold-braided sleeves, and it’s a brave (stupid) man who wilfully rides a German motorcycle right onto the heart of one of their key bases… If one has any sense. one doesn’t mess with the spirits of a few thousand RAF servicemen. One doesn’t, particularly, thumb one’s nose at them by riding one’s German through-andthrough R1100GS onto the middle of one of their airfields, even if they did technically “leave” in 1947. Sorry, chaps. I suppose I had it coming. So, there I was, parked up and getting in no-one’s way. I took a wander round part of the old peri track, took some pictures and wandered back to the bike. Out to supper with some friends for a birthday that evening. It’s 5 o’clock now and I need to ride home, get a shower and meet them for drinks first. We’re off to Allium in Fairford too, so I’ve been looking forward to it for a while.
So it’s with a happy heart at the prospect of a good evening stuffing my face and drinking decent wine that I stroll back to the bike. Key in. Swing leg over saddle. Key to “on”. Press starter. Click. Rats. Somewhere, the spirit of an old LAC was leaning against a hangar, mug of sweet tea in hand, quietly sniggering behind his hand. Click. Sod. Click. Now he was joined by his mates, and they’re all stood around collapsing in gales of laughter. “German bloody engineering – not much bloody good, is it mate?” They had a point. And I was going to be late. So I do what any chap as lucky as me would do in the circumstances. I ring The Fragrant Pip, who’s at home (fortunately), and she comes to rescue me with a set of jump leads. She’s there in quarter of an hour, and so I break out the toolkit (still doubtless watched by sniggering groundcrew from on high somewhere) and set to.Saddle off, side panel off, allen key out, tank up…They must have really started wetting themselves when it began to hack it down with rain. Jump leads on, The Fragrant Pip’s car connected at the other end. Thumb the starter button. Click. 22
I’m sure I heard sniggering from somewhere, turning into proper belly-laughter. He’s gone and found more of his mates, hasn’t he? Click. Damn. It’s now nearly 6pm and that meal, the enticing bottles of red, are looking less and less likely. So I call the RAC instead, and in ten minutes they send a mechanical angel in the form of one Robert Smith in his van. What an absolutely TOP bloke. He looks at the bike, does what I’d done again and says,
The ideal place to break down. On a German bike!
“You know what it is mate, don’t you?”
Bear in mind this is a bike that weighs 243 kg (540 lb). We discover, too, that Broadwell’s west/east runway has a slope. An upward one. So we turn round and try again.
“No, no idea,” I reply. “S’knackered, innit?”
Rob stops after the third attempt – it’s nearly catching, but not quite. And try again, and again, this time with me pushing.
Superb. We laugh. Really. He then sets about the bike with a will. I now have the sense that the LACs are enjoying watching a fellow pro at work, nodding approvingly.
Assembled spiritual groundcrew now rolling around, clutching their sides and weeping with laughter. They’ve got the entire squadron out watching this one and they’re loving it.
Rob decides it’s the starter motor, which is getting pretty hot. So, not one to be beaten, he takes it off and tries to fix it:
Finally, we flag down a passing bloke in a 4×4 who helps us push and the bike catches.
Sadly, the Allied starter motor (French, by Valeo) ain’t playing. The magnets are completely shot away. So Rob sticks the knackered starter in a carrier bag and we stash it in one of the panniers.
The LACs cheer – they’ve had their laugh and are decent sorts. Rob follows me home to make sure I get back OK, and a couple of bottles somehow find their way into the cab of his van. Top bloke.
It’s six forty five. Supper’s looking more remote by the minute.
We even make it just in time for drinks and supper… And I make a point of raising a glass to the men of Squadrons 437, 512 and 575 and Rob
“Let’s bump it. If we can get enough pace up it’ll fire. You ride – I’ll push.” So that’s what we try to do, heading into the sunset. 23
RAF Windrush Sunday 18th August 1940. By August 1940, the Battle of Britain was reaching its conclusion. On that single day, the RAF shot down or severely damaged thirty-six Luftwaffe aircraft. That day, 129 Germans died. The cost to the RAF was eleven pilots and aircrew.
24
Hangar at RAF Windrush
RAF Windrush Sunday 18th August 1940. By August 1940, the Battle of Britain was reaching its conclusion. On that single day, the RAF shot down or severely damaged thirty-six Luftwaffe aircraft. That day, 129 Germans died. The cost to the RAF was eleven pilots and aircrew. One of the men who died that day was Sergeant Bruce Hancock. But he didn’t die over Dover. He died in a Gloucestershire field without having fired a shot. He had almost finished training with No6 SFTS at RAF Little Rissington and was about to go on leave. He was 26. Hancock had just taken off from RAF Windrush in his Anson L9164. It was dark, and Hancock was practising night flying. At four minutes to midnight, he collided with a Heinkel HE111 of the Luftwaffe's 5/KG27. The plane had been detailed to attack RAF Brize Norton, ten miles SE of RAF Windrush, but the pilot had mistaken Windrush for Brize and attempted an attacking run. Hancock's body was not found until the following day, lying 100 yards from the wreckage of his plane. Local firewatchers who found his body claimed that had more of an effort been made to find him on the night of the crash, he may have lived. The German plane came down at Blackpits Farm near Aldbourne (now just off the A40). The four German flyers were buried with full military honours at Northleach Parish Church. Hancock was buried in the RAF cemetery at Hendon. But what happened? Did Hancock deliberately use his Anson to ram the German Heinkel, or was it a simple mid-air crash?
Reports from ground observers at the time say that the German plane opened fire on Hancock’s Anson. They also say that he slowed his plane, allowing the German aircraft to overfly him. Then, once the Heinkel’s pilot was committed to the manoeuvre, Hancock climbed, ramming the German plane out of the sky. Although the RAF never recognised Hancock’s action, he had apparently told his brother-in-law that he would be quite prepared to deliberately ram an enemy aircraft' if he had to... Hancock has two memorials today - one on a plaque in Windrush Church, the other on the control tower at RAF Windrush. It was the latter I set out to find... ------A gorgeous Saturday morning. Too good to head into the office, so instead I decided to head out and do some history. I’m lucky enough to live in probably the most airfield-dense part of the country. There are around thirty disused RAF stations around Oxfordshire and into Gloucestershire. I’ve always been fascinated by them, so I often get on the bike and end up standing on an old concrete peri track, somewhere in a field – all that’s left of an old training base or satellite strip. So, the Panzermoto saddled up, I primed the GPS and headed off to find RAF Windrush. It’s a bit of a challenge as it’s not on any roads anymore. In fact, you get to the old airfield on a track off the A40 that links Cheltenham and Witney. Like many airfields, it’s private land so best to get permission before visiting. 25
It’s a gorgeous ride, with views over the countryside for miles. It doesn’t take long to realise you’re on the right track for an airfield – you can see the old concrete link roads that link the parts of the old camp. In the woods on the left of the track are the remains of an old, brick-built, standard pattern, blast shelter. The roof’s gone, but you can still see the banking and internal structure. On the right of the road are the remains of the old sick quarters and, further south, the WAAF site - Windrush was a big base with more than 2,000 personnel and nearly 180 WAAFs. It even had its own sewage disposal plant. The accommodation and domestic sites were to the North West of the landing ground, some close to the A40. On the same side, other concrete and brick buildings were training facilities. Plenty The woods around RAF Windrush still hold are still there, dotted around the site. many disused buildings In fact, the building site to the north of the A40 that has stood derelict for some years was part of the base too. The control tower is still there, restored, and some of the taxiways and perimeter track. You can still see one of the blister hangars and a T1 aircraft shed too. The machine gun range still stands in the valley below the airfield. A look on Google Maps will give you some idea of how the base was laid out originally. But the runways were the temporary Sommerfield tracking type, so nothing remains. The first time I visited Windrush, the plaque to Sgt Hancock was faded, but still firmly on the NE wall of the control tower. Now, in 2012, it had gone. I can’t believe anyone would steal something like this, so I imagine it’s simply been removed for safekeeping or restoration. I certainly hope so.
26
RAF Stanton Harcourt Stanton Harcourt was the satellite base for RAF Abingdon, and the first planes
lifted off on 3rd September 1940 with 10 Operational Training Unit, mostly flying medium bomber Whitleys (training for night missions) & Halifaxes.
27 27 27
RAF Stanton Harcourt runway looking east
Stanton was - and still is - a vast base. It stretches from the village of Stanton Harcourt itself across to the site of the modern Dix Pit.The runways have nearly all disappeared - grubbed up for gravel extraction - what’s left of No.1 runway still stands to the west of Dix Pit. Strange to think that where West Oxfordshire residents now dump their broken TVs was where bombers once clawed their way skywards, night after night, to pound Germany and occupied France. Hanson had a depot for gravel extraction at the site, and much of the rest of the base has been given over to landfill and light industry. It’s almost impossible to get any idea of how the place used to be laid out. But, apart from the exceptional preservation of the Tech Site near the village, Stanton is remarkable for two reasons:
Armourer's Workshop, Stanton Harcourt But, from the path, with a bit of imagination, you can still imagine the base as home to more than 700 personnel.
-Halifaxes from 35 & 76 Squadron mounted the July 1941 attack on Scharnhorst from Stanton Harcourt and, - Winston Churchill flew to the Casablanca Conference on 13th January 1943 from Stanton Harcourt in Liberator AL504 (OpInside the Ops Block eration 'Static'). When I first photographed Stanton Harcourt in 2008 it was easy to walk around the remains of the Tech site. There was little vandalism, easy access and most of the buildings were used for farm storage. It's much harder now. Vandalism has meant the landowner has fenced off most of the site off the footpath with barbed wire.
From original maps, it’s possible to work out that the site of the Control Tower is now under landfill at the north of the site. The bomb dump and firing range are buried in woods near Dix Pit and are only partly visible. The landowner’s efforts to keep out the vandals have had some sad effects. One of the blast shelters, just next to the main path into the base, used to be edged with what looked like original, WWII, whitewashed stones. I’d always imagined some poor Erk on punishment duty, carefully brushwhitewashing each one. Even seventy years later the whitewash was faded but still there. Must have taken three coats at least. Now, to make room for the barbed wire fencing that runs directly past the old blast shelter, they’ve been grubbed up and dumped. It seems poor thanks. 28
RAF Little Rissington
Winter at Little Rissington 29 29
Spring You can tell it’s spring. All the little parking gaps in Stow that are empty in the winter now host Solvol-gleamed motorcycles. The creak of leathers is almost audible as sportsbike riders mix it with the righteous Harley brethren in the mean streets and tea shops. Today, I headed up to Stow, as ever, through the Ural-friendly backlanes. Those backlanes seem always to have a habit of leading me to old airfields. I’m pretty used to disused hangars, cracked and pocked runways with more grass than gravel. But RAF Little Rissington (‘Rissy’ to its friends) is, unusually, still at least partially, active. 637 Volunteer Gliding Squadron are based here, flying Grob 109s and training air cadets. All rather a long way from the Red Arrows, heavyweight C130 Hercules and C5 Galaxies that used to rumble down the runways. Most of the technical site has been ‘developed’ and is now a housing estate. Homes fit for heroes, with satellite TV. The Officer’s Mess (a gorgeous piece of faux-Georgian architecture) is now boarded up to stop any more vandalism. Cleverly, someone had left a pot of anti-climb paint in one of the halls before the place was made secure. It seemed someone had made good use of it 666 and various anarchy symbols now cover the walls. As I’d pulled up and switched off the Ural there was something a little more unusual overhead. OK, actually a lot more than unusual. Generally, one doesn’t see too many Focke Wulf 190s in the Cotswolds – at least, not nowadays. The FW190 was one of the Axis’ most effective warplanes. Even so, just clearing the west end of the runway was – apparently – a FW190. That’s a bit like nipping down to the shops and seeing Senna’s JPS Lotus Renault pulling into a parking space. 30
Watching a Grob take off at RAF Little Rissington
It seems I wasn’t hallucinating – although I hadn’t actually seen a wartime FW. If you’ve got around £20,000 you can even pick up a second hand one. A replica. Usually a fully working and pilotable scale model of the real thing. I don’t quite get it. Yes, I can see the point of the hours spent restoring an original. There’s magic to that; bringing the past to life again. But a smaller, modern replica? That’s like Senna’s JPS Lotus turning out to be an MR2 with a body kit. I’ll bet it gives its owner a huge amount of pleasure though, and who the hell am I to criticise? The same runway that had seen Spitfires, Hurricanes and the odd Lancaster was now hosting planes that were very much made in Germany. One, a training plane for the modern RAF, the other, a replica of one of the RAF’s sworn enemies. Just a little smaller. I couldn’t help smiling at the irony. I fired up the very genuine Ural and clackaclacka’ed into Stow. It was time for a cuppa.
RAF Kelmscott
31 31
RAF Kelmscott Sun Sunset rise overover RAF Kelmscott
I sat in the airless reception area with its cheerful, exhortative corporate posters and thought of communist Russia. Dark wood. Grey, worn carpet. Grey fluorescent lights. Every so often, there would be a sharp, electronic bleep and the door would get pushed open. A grey-suited figure would scuttle past and the door, on its spring, would creak slowly shut. I thought affectionately of WD 40. As I waited on the single, plastic seat so kindly provided for visitors, I thought too of the sunshine I’d left behind as I picked up my visitor’s badge at Reception. I resolved, as soon as I got home, to get the Ural’s keys off their hook and out into the evening lanes.
So, out through Clanfield, slightly reluctantly past the Clanfield Tavern, and out towards Radcot, turning right to Lechlade. I had an old map, no new map, and a bit of guesswork to go by. Usually, airfields - like real tennis courts - are easy to spot. A concrete edge to a road. A metal-framed window in a semi-derelict brick building. Hawthorn and elder grown up around foundations. Not Kelmscott. You could ride past fifty times and not realise you were passing one of D-Day’s main stages. In May 1944, you’d have struggled to hear English spoken at Kelmscott. More than 200 Polish paratroops swooped down in mock assaults in preparation for D-Day. The four grass strips that constituted Kelmscott’s runways had seldom seen so much action. As a Beam Approach School for Airspeed Oxfords and relief landing ground for RAF Watchfield, Kelmscott was never going to be a big base. But, as a training site for D-Day, it was crucial.
By the time I’d dug under the corporate wire and out of Stalag Corporate, the sun was thinking about a stiff G&T and putting its feet up. But, at this time of year, the shadows seem longer and richer in the evenings. And I had a good reason - as well as blowing stale air out of my lungs - to ride. So I put the sidecar’s wheels on the verge, stopped the engine, pulled off my gloves and I’ve been looking at old airfields since around helmet, and sat watching the sun set. Not a lot 2006. I’ve lived in Bampton since 2002. I’ve happens now at RAF Kelmscott. The ridden to Lechlade to the rather fine background track, apart from swifts chiding, Lechlade Fish Bar and sat by the Thames, was the mordanted tone of a combine. The enjoying their finest, countless times. So corndust on the edge of a far field was rising how had I missed RAF Kelmscott? against the sun. A few cars swished past, Worse than that, Kelmscott Pork Sausages looking at the silly man on his sidecar. There had found their way into the Saturday was a depth to the quiet. The sort of silence morning frying pan increasingly often. So that only comes from relative isolation and space. After a day of meetings, noise and why did I not know about RAF Kelmscott? running to keep up, I relaxed into it. And Simple. There’s nothing left of it. enjoyed the sunset. One day, perhaps twenty years off, most of the old bases I spend time exploring will be like this. Fields. Sky. Hedges. Nothing to show they were once home to men, places where they faced fear and won, mostly. 32
Eventually, shattering the peace, I started the engine and rolled towards Kelmscott and The Plough, one of my favourite pubs. As I clacked down the lane and drew level with the pub, I realised the garden was full, every table sat four or more or squeezed six.
Stopping under the gaze of the whole garden, taking off my helmet and walking, publicly, inside seemed ostentatious, obvious. Oooh, look at me! So I rode on. It’s hard enough to look at the future of a business in a recession, without that solid lump of worry rising. But I get to go home every evening, safely and securely. In Spring 1944, dropping out of a plane, into a countryside where your mother tongue would get you mistaken for a German, nothing was certain, nothing fixed. But the odds were far from good. Sometimes, as I’ve often said before, I worry too much. You’d have thought I’d have learned by now. August 2012
The Ural on the approach road to RAF Kelmscott 33 33
RAF Southrop
The remaining runway at Southrop 34 34
It was a gorgeous evening on Friday, so I thought I’d do something I’d planned for ages - a quick scout round the old RAF Southrop. My office used to be in Southrop, and the old WWII base is just up the road so it seemed rude not to. And I’d been waiting for the chance for a while.
Originally, Southrop had 3 grass runways: 05/23 - 3060 ft 15/33 - 2790 ft Due East/West - 3450 ft But there are remains of a later, concrete perimeter track and taxiways - you can see them on the pics. I’m trying to find out if the main runways were concreted too.
I’d learned my lesson from previous explorations of RAF bases and took something Russian. Didn’t think any RAF-loyal gremlins left behind could object to that.
I didn’t have a lot of time - or a decent camera, just my iPhone - so this was always going to be an exploratory visit with an eye to coming back and doing a proper job.
RAF Southrop was a Royal Air Force station just west of Southrop village in Gloucestershire. Opened in August 1940 and finally closed two years after the war in November 1947.
I started at the little back lane that leads from Southrop to Eastleach. The old domestic site is now owned by the Hatherop Estate, but I’m sure they won’t mind me poking about a bit.
Wherever you go in this part of the Cotswolds you’ll fall over WWII bases every three minutes, on average.
There must have been worse places to be posted. All the view you could eat, plus two VERY good pubs within rolling distance.
Driving back from Cheltenham a couple of weeks ago I spotted the tell-tale outline of a norcon pillbox and discovered RAF Chedworth (one for another day).
You get to the site by riding up a dusty, dirty track near the wonderfully named Macaroni Woods. Unlike many of the roads around old WWII bases, this access road was never concreted. Those concrete tracks are a dead giveaway for old bases. Spot one of those leading into a field and it’s always worth taking a look - that and any old brick buildings with cast metal window frames.
That’s by the by though. Southrop was used as a relief landing ground (RLG) for Oxford and Harvard training aircraft for 23 Grp. Advanced Flying Unit (AFU) and a relief landing ground for RAF Little Rissington, just up the road. It’s an interesting site. The base itself is a long way from the motor transport and domestic site. It’s a funny old place though - a combination of modern use for old buildings but lots of strung-out infrastructure. Almost as if it’s waiting for a passing plane to drop in if it’s needed.
Just about the first thing you see at Southrop is the old water tower. Presumably Stealth & Hasty have pointed their bony finger, so it’s now fenced off, but still very much standing. I know from talking to one of the village old boys in the pub that they used to climb it back in the ‘50s. 35
There’s a real range of decay at Southrop. From buildings that look like a decent shove would tumble them to pristine whitewashed and renovated. For example, the old ablutions block is now used by a firm that makes fake stone castings. Stuff’s just piled up outside. Can’t imagine the mess would impress any passing Flight Sergeants. Most of the old domestic site has gone over to light industrial use. That, and a few interesting abandoned cars. I spotted a whole heap - literally - of Mk I Range Rovers. This was the first base where I began to see just the bases of buildings - foundations, but nothing else. Now, as I look around old bases this is, sadly, becoming more common. I saw one of the farm tracks on the edge of the estate making good use of old RAF brick as hardcore. Seems a shame though. I’m always conflicted about what should happen to these old bases. Leave them to return to the earth they came from? Develop them? Just let chance, business need and nature take its course? It seems sad that whatever happens seems to be casual and haphazard. It’s in such stark contrast to the way these bases were created, occupied and used.
View across one of the remaining Southrop runways 36
RAF Chipping Norton
RAF Chipping Norton , perimeter track 37 37
If Cotswoldy, woody, rubbing-shoulders-at-the-village-pubby Southrop was a warm, comfortable good place to sit out the war, RAF Chipping Norton was not. Set on the bleak, heathery top of the downs just south of Chipping Norton, it’s windswept and desolate even on a summer Sunday. It seemed the Luftwaffe thought so too. They raided the base once in October 1940 and twice in November. Even the RAF seemed to agree. Starting out as a relief landing ground (RLG) for Little Rissington, it never progressed above the status of a satellite airfield. Although the perimeter track was concrete, Chippy’s two runways were grass, then upgraded to Sommerfield Track in 1941. When I lived near Chipping Norton in the 1990s, the control tower still stood, along with many of the support buildings. Today, very little indeed remains to show that the hilltop ever played host to an airbase. I remember Bellman hangars, outbuildings and the control tower. Today, only the concrete hangar foundations remain. The control tower has been knocked down and used for hardcore. Even from the air, only the remains of the concrete perimeter track, a few tracks and building bases at the south west show that this was an airfield.
Hangar door track, RAF Chipping Norton
38
Serendipity and Sausages
39
Not your average back garden
Yesterday - in case you missed it - was one of those autumn days that's cold enough for the jacket liner but bright enough for sunglasses. Pip was off to London for a course, so I had the whole day to ride. I sat down and tried to see what I could find on Google. I don't usually just ride for the hell of it; I like somewhere to go. A purpose.
Conceived, founded, managed and still manned by Gerry Tyack MBE, this single-room museum is filled to every corner with RAF Moreton in Marsh artefacts, aircraft parts, German insignia and decorations (labelled large as "the symbols of tyranny" - no PC fannying about for Mr Tyack), aviation art and documents. It was like walking into Aladdin's cave and discovering he'd flown on 617 Squadron and had saved the pictures for me.
So, options... National Motorcycle Museum, Sammy Miller's, Duxford (always a favourite), Brooklands for a look at their Hurricane? Bath for a decent lunch? Couldn't settle on any of them. I was a proper mardy little sod. Brooklands needed too much motorway and A road to get there. Bath's a bugger to park in and lunch isn't lunch without a bottle of something. Sammy Miller's would be too crowded. Moan, moan, moan.
We got talking. Mr Tyack and I. Turned out he was interested in my bike. He'd sold BMW cars in Moreton in the early 1980s and remembered loony-toons stuff like the 2002 Turbo. Rather than flying Wellingtons, he'd been one of the men keeping them in the air. And the passion for machinery wasn't dimmed even slightly by 87 years.
So, angry with myself for being so ungrateful for a beautiful, late September day, I pulled the GS keys off the hook and just decided to ride and see where the road went.
We talked bikes, cars, planes, old airfields and the rather sneaking feeling we both had that there's rather too much interfering in everyone's life nowadays. It must be hard for a man who's worked straight 48 hour shifts in -12 degrees, keeping fighting aircraft in the air, to willingly fill in risk assessment forms for a WWII museum.
So, out past Brize (where the XM655 - the Vulcan - is currently parked up - and gorgeous she is too), through Burford and out on the Stow road. By the time I'd filtered through the Range Rover-clogged streets of Stow I'd ditched the mardy mood and was grinning. So I carried on. And that's where serendipity gave the bars a bit of a tug and turned the bike towards Moreton in Marsh.
Just before he shut up the museum for lunch, Mr Tyack suggested I take a look in the back garden of the building. He said I might be surprised by what I found. I was. It's not every day that one walks into someone's back garden and finds a complete geodesic Wellington rear section propped up on bits of scaffolding poles with a bird feeder hanging from one of the control surfaces.
"Worcester," I thought, so took a left just by the Market Hall. Then I spotted something a propeller propped against a Cotswold stone wall. And a couple of aircraft landing wheels - from a bomber by the look of them. So I stopped. And I found the Wellington Aviation Museum.
Serendipity indeed.
40
And so I rode on, finding more lanes to explore and getting thoroughly lost, finally leaning the bike onto the sidestand at Hailes Abbey near Winchcombe. A walk around the ruins (thanks, Henry Tudor - you were a fine tennis player but an architectural philistine), revealed that graffiti is nothing new, even from the clergy. I sat in the sun at the farm cafe just up the road, with coffee and apple cake and watched the planes from Staverton buzz overhead, and wondered if anyone else, anywhere was having such a wonderful day. And on getting back to the bike, I realised I'd parked next to the farm shop. And that they sold sausages. Rude not to, really. So I did. So this morning's breakfast, sizzling away behind me as I write this at the kitchen table, is brought to you by serendipity and Gloucester Old Spot pigs. And I realise too, writing this, that I'm truly, truly rich. I had one of the best days ever for the cost of half a tank of fuel, ÂŁ2.50 for a museum I didn't know was there and the willingness just to go exploring. And ÂŁ3.34 for some of the finest sausages I've tasted. They're ready now.
Tail section of a crashed Wellington 41
RAF Down Ampney
Taxiway at RAF Down Ampney 42
I arranged to spend yesterday with a bloke I’d never met before, just on the strength of a couple of e-mails and a phone call. Leave those ‘fnarr’ comments at the door – we’d arranged to meet to ride a route around Gloucestershire’s disused WWII airfields. These usually desolate places are always alive to me. Their history and stories add vitality to the cracked concrete and decaying brick. This chap (who I won’t name because his job means he won’t want it plastered across the web) took the trouble to get in touch, offer to plan a route, and spend a day of his leave riding it with me. All for someone he’d never met. You’d have to try pretty hard to find a more decent bloke.
We stood on the pegs and bumped our way down to the old Guardhouse site, where new airmen would have had their first sight of the base. Now, apart from the broken concrete track, some grass, trees and scrub, there’s just the memorial to the men who served there. Those wreaths had just been laid at the weekend – the closest Sunday to the anniversary of Operation Market Garden. For me, what’s left of these old, disused airfields is incredibly precious. They’re unsanitised, not glossed over with modern interpretation and they speak – as a consequence – incredibly directly. It would be easy to write something schmalzy about ‘their loss to gain our freedom’, but it’s not a concept I can even start to understand – despite having two parents who lived (and served) through WWII.
The memorial at RAF Down Ampney
We met just outside Cheltenham and set off, clouds threatening, into the Cotswolds. We rode just under 130 miles. We stopped for a cuppa, but otherwise we were ragging around the backlanes with hardly a mile on A roads. Most of the lanes had gravel, grass, even rocks in the middle – and they were just fantastic riding. We saw empty fields that had once been runways, bases that had first seen action in WWI with the Royal Flying Corps, and even perfectly preserved control towers. For an airfield junkie this was opium.
Finally, we ended up at the site of RAF Down Ampney. Like most disused bases, it wasn’t easy to find, tucked down at the end of what had been its perimeter track, now crumbling concrete pitted with pools. I’d wanted to find Down Ampney for a while, and it seemed fitting that we saw it just three days before the 66th anniversary of Operation Market Garden – the assault on Arnhem – where this airfield played 43 a central part as a glider base.
I suspect, too, that most of the men flying from Down Ampney were more concerned about protecting – and being protected by – their colleagues than they were about any higher, more abstract ideal. As I stood on the runway of Down Ampney with the rain lashing in, I couldn’t even begin to imagine the fear, the confusion, the apprehension they must have felt as they climbed into flimsy gliders not knowing what was waiting on the other side of the channel. And I’m bloody grateful that I don’t have to.
The Good Samaritan 5 June 2010.
RAF Broadwell runway, now a road 44
The Good Samaritan “For God’s sake!” For the third time that evening, Squadron Leader Martin Delaheye cursed his decision to ride the BMW. Even in mid-summer it was hopeless. You’d think, in June, you had a chance of getting home without halfdrowning. But no, the rain had got to the electrics and and that was it – the bike was spluttering, coughing and regularly dying by the roadside. With that bogging, helpless sensation known to every motorcyclist who’s run a classic, the 1959 R50‘s engine coughed and stalled. No power. Delaheye coasted to a stop, realising as soon as the water started filling his boot that he’d put his left foot in a puddle the size of the Channel. German reliability. Right. He pulled his helmet and misted goggles off and wondered where the hell he was. He eschewed GPSs – particularly on classic bikes – but now, at nearly midnight, in hacking rain and dark, he was regretting not slipping his Garmin into the panniers. There was no point in getting the map out, it already resembled papier mache. He rummaged around for his headtorch, only to find it glowing dully at the bottom of the pannier. He realised the switch must have got knocked on. The light faded and died. “Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.” He thought.
He guessed he was just south of Burford, near one of the old WWII bases that litter that part of the county. RAF Broadwell? RAF Southrop? Windrush? Could have been any of them. From recent experience, he knew what came next. A wait of about twenty minutes for the thing to cool down, then kick, kick, kick and it would fire and run for maybe another half an hour. With a bit of luck he might make RAF Brize Norton before 1am and a glass of whisky in the mess before bed. He couldn’t be that far away. Assuming he could find the problem without his headtorch. Delaheye kicked the back wheel, more for want of anything better to do than out of malice, and leaned on the saddle. He wished he still smoked. A light flickered in the right-hand mirror. At first, barely a glow, then as it got closer, a narrow slit of light casting a vague puddle on the wet road as the rider approached. Over the rain, Delaheye could sense – rather than hear – the regular beat of the single cylinder. British, almost certainly. His money was on a BSA, probably one of the early post-war singles. But whatever he was riding, another rider would surely stop. He might even have a torch. An Imperial toolkit wouldn’t be much use, but that wasn’t a problem. Delaheye always carried a full set of metrics. That 1am whisky in the Mess was suddenly looking a whole lot likelier.
The ride had started beautifully. Summer country lanes, dappled leaf patterns on the tarmac from the sun. All the way up through Dorset and Hampshire had been the very English motorcycling idyll, even on a German bike. Then, just after Wantage it had started. He was wrong. It was a Norton. Probably an The sort of rain he just knew would start old wartime WD16H (“WD” for War dribbling coldly down between his flight Department and H for “home” as opposed to jacket and scarf. The sort of rain that was C for “colonial”) despatcher’s bike. The bike going to cause a short somewhere in the stopped and the rider climbed off with a wave. ancient wiring loom and strand him on some 45 lane somewhere in Oxfordshire. “Evening, Sir. Everything alright? Saw you stop. Not the night for it.”
“Good to see another idiot out on a proper bike at this time of night! Glad you stopped – think there’s a duff wire and I can’t see a damn thing, my torch battery’s buggered. Haven’t got one have you?” Delaheye took in his rescuer’s bike and kit. Flat matt green paintwork, serial number and a division crest on the tank. Single seat and canvas panniers. A beautiful restoration, he could see that even in the gloom through the rain. “Always liked those old 16s, quite fancy one myself. Better than this thing.” He commented, kicking the BMW again. “Standard issue, Sir. Good bikes, front brake’s a bit vague if you know what I mean, but they go well.” he added with a grin. “That a Douglas, Sir? Flat twin, yeah? It’s gorgeous – not seen one like it.” Delaheye’s rescuer didn’t wait for the answer, but pulled his machine onto the stand and started hunting for his torch. He found it in a remote corner of one of the panniers and handed it across the bike with a grin. Delaheye took it. Cold, wet, metal, with heavy tube body, a belt clip and the head at a right-angle. He suddenly realised. Reenactment. No summer weekend was complete without some battle being reenacted on a field somewhere. The guys always had the right kit – he’d been amazed at how accurate the old RAF uniforms and equipment were. And the Luftwaffe ones too, he thought, with a wry smile.
“I’d check the magneto if I were you – loose wire I’d guess.” Delaheye slid the switch and pointed the light under the tank. There it was! Why hadn’t he spotted that before – magneto wire loose and almost off the post. He reached back and pulled a 12mm spanner from the roll and nipped the nut up as the Norton rider looked on. “Sorry,” Delaheye said, making conversation, “I didn’t get your name. Mine’s Delaheye – Martin Delaheye. Trying to get to bloody Brize before the mess shuts!” “Guessed you were RAF with a flash new bike like that. “ The other rider grinned again. “Tarrant – Harry Tarrant. My lot are all camped over there. Nearly time for the off though.” He nodded a direction and Delaheye could just see a row of army-issue style tents stretching back from the road. A few figures moved and glowing cigarette ends blinked on and off as they cupped the smoke. He gestured at the three stripes on his arm, “Mind you, it’s Sergeant Tarrant nowadays. But a rider’s a rider, if you know what I mean – doesn’t matter who it is, you always stop. ‘Specially on a night like tonight. G’luck, Sir – she should start now.”
Delaheye grinned in return, handed the torch back and straddled the BMW. Pulling out the kick start, he weighted it carefully, found compression and kicked. The engine fired. The re-enacters often had mid-week pub He waved his thanks to Tarrant as he let out meetings. His rescuer must be on the way the clutch, mentally planning to look up his back from one locally and have got caught in re-enactment club on the web – should be the storm too. He was clearly into his hobby easy enough – and thank him by e-mail. – the “Sir” comments, the uniform, the Maybe even get him in for a mess night as 46a thank you. immaculate bike. It all fitted.
As he looked back in his mirrors, Tarrant had already disappeared in the darkness behind a curtain of grey rain. And, half a mile later, as the familar landmark of the derelict RAF Broadwell control tower loomed up from the left, he realised he’d be at the mess bar with that whisky in about fifteen minutes. He opened the throttle a little wider and smiled happily in anticipation. As the heavy door shut behind him, Delaheye wondered why he’d passed the Plough so often yet not come in before. Handing over his coins, he drew off the top of his pint and was soon happily reading the old cuttings on the walls. As the nearest civilised pub to Brize, there were plenty of them. Stories about long-scrapped Vulcans, Lancasters, Spits, even a few about the D-Day Douglas Dakota glider tugs from Broadwell.
A Norton 16H and – yes, it was unmistakable – Harry Tarrant. Delaheye would recognise that grin – and that bike – anywhere. He felt a pang of guilt. He’d still not got around to sending that e-mail. He patted his pocket, reassured that his iPhone was still there. He’d sit and read the article and send Harry his belated thanks as he drank his 6X. Then, he spotted the date at the top left of the framed article. August 3 1944. Not quite registering, he sat down and started scanning the text under the picture of a smiling Harry and bike:
“Local Hero – Despatch Rider Decorated. Sergeant Harry Tarrant, son of Peter and Mary Tarrant of Alvescot, was, last Thursday, awarded the Military Medal for his gallantry in the recent He usually drank in the Normandy Landings. Clanfield Tavern. He had After flying from RAF only dropped into the Plough Inside the Control Tower RAF Broadwell Broadwell on D-Day, because he was out for a ride Tarrant, a despatch rider before the light went, just to in the Royal Corps of Signals, not only rode clear the cobwebs after a day of clearing admin into hostile machine gun fire to ensure vital from one tray to another. He didn’t fancy signals were delivered to forward HQ bumping into his colleagues and having to stop positions, but continued to do so in order to to chat. The R50 was going a storm. New rescue two fallen comrades whose lives bearings after that summer’s engine rebuild and were in mortal danger. He later died of the no trace of magneto problems. injuries he received. A framed cutting a little higher than the others His award of the Military Medal is caught his eye. A bike and rider. The paper posthumous.” yellowed and the mount speckled with pub nicotine and age. It was just too high to read, so “A rider’s a rider, if you know what I mean – he reached up and took it down. doesn’t matter who it is, you always stop.” 47
MMC Musings My day-job usually sees me behind a keyboard, writing in meetings talking about writing or explaining to some poor client why he should sort out his organisation’s writing. Nearly everything I write tends to be to a brief, a deadline and a budget. That’s fine, but I wanted to find a way to write for the sheer enjoyment of it - with none of the above. An opportunity to write without any commercial imperative. So I started a blog and posted bits of writing about motorcycles, watches, daft speed limits and lost airbases. Just stuff I liked, cared about or thought would be fun. You can find it at mmcmusings.com. I hope if you do find it, you enjoy it.
48
What next?
The Ural at RAF Broadwell 49 wiith the Control Tower in the 49
In the time you’ve been reading this, another WWII airfield has been demolished for housing, built over for an industrial estate or just knocked down for hardcore on a farm track somewhere. And perhaps that’s OK. These were never intended as permanent structures, land is scarce and it’s surprising they’ve lasted this long. Perhaps it’s not unreasonable to just let nature, the need for foundations and farm tracks take their course. But it’s the casual way they’re going quietly, unsung and in a few careless puffs of demolition dust - that bothers me. There are so few markers to the past, so few still living who can tell what they remember. There are too many stories in the massproduced, red, London brick, too many hopes and individual lives bound in the mortar, to let them go quietly. But preserving them as theme parks would be even worse. Imagine the irony as Health and Safety flap about stringing yellow warning barriers across a ‘trip hazard’ where men carried guns, jumped from planes and went to war.
There are groups campaigning for memorials at airfields, and I’m delighted. But for me, that’s not the whole story. I believe these special places need interpretation, understanding and knowledge. Memorials have a knack of distancing the past from the present too much. They layer on too much certainty, order and teleology to a time that was uncertain, chaotic and fluid. So that’s really why I’ve written this - as a very small way and a very poor attempt to join a few fragments of the past to the present. Perhaps the only certainly is that, whatever we do, our history is slowly crumbling. If it interests you, go and see these places, soon.
Mark McArthur-Christie August 2012
50
BCA-8/B March 2015
