periscope

Interesting post, I've collected quite a few WW2 bits and pieces after searching an old airfield camp site where some of the RAF people were based. The camp was on the edge of an old airfield and after the war returned to agricultural use. I searched the whole site with a metal detector and recovered old cap badges, several forks (probably lost by airmen retuning from the cookhouse, quite a few pre decimal coins, coat buttons, and quite a lot of cartidge ends from very light pistols which were used to signal returning aircraft whether or not it was safe to land. I also found in the same field a cap badge from the First World War - it was called the Royal Flying Corps in those days and the badge has RFC on the front instead of the later RAF. The remainder of the airfield proper is now a nature reserve but there are still parts of the old runways in existence.

Ian

duncan

I wasnt sure if I`d told it here or not but it goes like this. My mother used to tell how about 1.30am, one night after attending a dance at Baldoon airfield her companion ( a Special Constable) stopped to pick up lone walker. He had a "strange accent" and a rucksack,looked as if he had been sleeping rough. In those days the fear of 5th columnists and parachuted spies was rife so the constable promptly drove the suspect to the local jail and locked him up. My mother was very proud of her bit for the war effort. Fast forward twenty odd years....warm summer day, a few of the workers at workshop where I was employed were basking quietly in the sun.The cabinet-maker broke the silence in his broad Western Isles tongue with "Did I effer tell you about the time I wass thrown in jile for bein a Cherman paaarashootist ?" My mouthfull of tea was sprayed everywhere as in an instant I KNEW what was coming next. "Aye, i wiss cumin off nicht duty wance , we wiz fitting radars an radio stuff in widden airyplanes , workin` aw oors. Anywi a wiss wakiin` hame wan Setterday nicht an this stupit polisman, wi a silly wumin wae him , thru` me in a wan room jile because ah widnae tell him aboot the top secret wurk we wis daein fur them at the `drome. Ah didnae get oot till the monday mornin`when they heard that ah wis missin` fae mah wurk an wass lookin fur me." Dear Mum went to her grave still thinking she had caught a spy. I never told the "spy" that I knew who had arrested him. The gentleman looked and spoke like Duncan McRae for those that can remember black and white films . The original version of Para Handy and similar that required the token Highlander or Lewis Man.

wonwinglo

A message from John.V.Nicholls should solve the mystery airfield poser-
I think I can close this one - you only had to ask... The two pictures can be confusing. The upper that shows Mathams Wood which was within the WW2 Sawbridgeworth airfield. The white "track" was the perimeter track. It continues across the road to Shingles Hall where a number of WW2 buildings still stand. The lower picture is mainly just outside the
airfield perimeter. For more information I recommend "Where the Lysanders were" by Paul Doyle. A new memorial was unveiled for Sawbridgeworth recently.

Hope that helps...
JV

Thanks John for the excellent explanation.
And now for Baldoon,Wigtown,lets see what we can come up with for this historic place.

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Bunkerbarge

Excellent Duncan. Many thanks for relating the tale.

One of those lovely stories we keep locked away to share with friends every now and then!

Nigel.D

Here is wigtown

Attached Images

wigtown.jpg (103.4 KB, 7 views)

SaraguayChild

After going to all the trouble of registering to answer this enquiry I have since noted that the answer was given by someone else. All I can do is confirm that Baldoon was the name of a farm on which RAF Wigtown was built in 1940-41. My father, a Canadina in the RAF, was a staff pilot, flight commander and later, a Navigations Instructor at the station. My mother, a veteran of RAF Biggin Hill and the Battle of Britain, was commissioned and became the first WAAF officer at the station in 1941 as the Cipher Officer reporting directly to the station commanding officer. My father was the first young man she met on arrival and they lived together happily for the next 63 years. At twenty-two, married, alone and pregnant (my father had been transferred to Harrogate), my mother resigned her commission as WAAF senior officer in charge of a 250 female compliment after almost three years in the military. My older brother and I were born in Harrogate where my father was stationed until sent back to Canada in June 1944. We joined him in March 1945 when I was 5 months old.

RAF Wigtown's role in WWII was simple. It was the training ground for some new navigators and radio operators and also an aclimatization stop for others who had trained in Canada, but who were not familiar to flying with no landmarks being lit up at night, something that could not be cut out in Canada where war was not a local condition. Navigators had to learn to fly by instruments at night and this was the only way to make sure they had learned their lesson properly.

I hope that answers your questions a little better.

Bunkerbarge

Thanks for taking the time to join us anyway and share your knowledge. Feel free to come and have a chat at any time you want. Anyone with such an interesting past will always have something of benefit to pass on to the members here.

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“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"