Category archives: RAF

RAF Kings Cliffe/USAAF Station 367 – Part One

RAF Kings Cliffe opened in 1943, was operational until 1959 and was assigned USAAF designation Station 367, it was home to the 20th Fighter Group of the USAAF 8th Airforce who flew P38 Lightnings and later P51 Mustangs on bomber escort duties & ; also the 56th Fighter Group of the USAAF 8th Airforce who flew P-47 Thunderbolts. When the war finished the airfield was used by the RAF for armament storage up until 1959 when it was sold and turned back to agricultural use which continues to this day.

Sadly all of the hangars and most of the Technical Site have been demolished and in recent months some Stanton Shelters have also been demolished to make way for some currently unknown construction. There are however many smaller buildings still intact such as M&E Plinths, Substations, Sleeping Quarters, Motor Transport Repair, PBX, several defended Fighter Pens with work area, Mushroom Pillboxes, a Battle Headquarters, miscellaneous buildings and of course the Control/Watch Tower.

This visit focused mainly on the perimeter track and outlying defences, a planned return visit in winter (with less undergrowth!!) will concentrate more on the Technical and Communal Sites.

For BHQ geeks you will notice that the Battle Headquarters here isn’t sunk fully into the ground like most are, at least I think that’s the case, I guess the ground could have been removed over the years?, but that doesn’t explain the fully sunken Cantilever/Mushroom Pillbox right next to it…..weird!! Sadly despite it being higher than many this one is flooded to a depth of approx 3ft and always seems to be. The Cupola is still accessible (and dry) via the Emergency Escape hatch though.

There’s lots of pix so I’m posting this across multiple days…..enjoy 🙂

Airfield & Technical Site. Fighter Pen (Building 112)
Airfield & Technical Site. Fighter Pen
Airfield & Technical Site. Sleeping Shelter
Airfield & Technical Site Mushroom Type Pill Box (Building 91)
 
Battle Headquarters (Building 90)
3ft High & Rising inside the BHQ
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Airfield & Technical Site. Sleeping Shelter and Gun Post (Building 81a)
Bunk Bed Mounts inside Building 81a
Airfield & Technical Site. Private Branch Exchange (Building 78) 
Airfield & Technical Site. Control Tower for Night Fighter Stations (Building 79)
Mechanical and Electrical Plinth
Fighter Pen Stanton Shelter
Callender-Hamilton Hangar door rail
Motor Transport Repair Sheds
Airfield & Technical Site. Sub Station
       
Airfield & Technical Site. Sub Station Transformer
Glenn Miller Memorial
Memorial
  

Market Deeping Starfish Decoy Control Bunker

This was a bonus find while we were out on a ROC Fest day last week (8 ROC Posts in one day!!), I’ve not seen anything like this before but its believed to be a Starfish Bombing Decoy Control Bunker related to the (relatively) nearby RAF Wittering

If you know different the please post a comment and let me know.

The building has three rooms, one small room at the front, which is now buried and was possibly either a generator room or more likely a toilet, a 12ft x 10ft room to one side of the entrance corridor and a large 30ft x 12ft room. The large room has a ladder on the end wall going up to a hatch in the concrete roof which looked like at one time it had a brick surround. At various points in the roof were large circular holes and on the large flat concrete roof was evidence of mounting points, possibly for a ‘Micklethwaite’ type device or maybe another small platform/canopy. Surrounding this site are piles of broken brickwork and at least one Blast Wall which may well have covered the main entrance originally.

All in all an interesting find and despite the graffiti the place had a nice feel to it.

Cantilever ‘Mushroom’ Pillboxes

Straying from the Cold War theme slightly here is my attraction to old airfields, I’m not big on WW2 stuff but these places provide a certain draw to me and I’m lucky to have many old RAF/USAF sites very near to my house. A full report on one of these sites will follow in the near future but for now here’s a small article on Cantilever Pillboxes.

Cantilever Pillboxes, more commonly known as Mushroom Pillboxes are found only on airfields and mainly in the East of England, they are of a circular design, partially sunken into the ground and have a 360 degree embrasure (opening) to allow weapon fire to be layed down in any direction. Just inside the embrasure and attached to the brickwork is a circular gun rail so a machine gun could be moved almost anywhere in the pillbox to lay down fire.

The construction of these two are of a circular brick built base with a central cruciform wall which in turn supports a poured concrete dome. The example in the photo’s below is from RAF Grafton Underwood and was in a defensive position at the north end of the No.1 Runway.  A second Mushroom Pillbox is also present on this site but the roof has sadly collapsed.

The airfield was opened in 1941 and was first used by the RAF  Bomber Command 1653 Heavy Conversion Unit with Liberators. The original runways were approximately 1,600 yards and 1,100 yards in length. The runways were not suitable for the operation of heavy, four-engined bombers so the airfield was upgraded to Class A, including the lengthening of the runways to the required 2,000 yards for the main and 1,400 yards for each of the others, started in late 1942.

As a result of this Grafton Underwood was assigned United States Army Air Force Eighth Air Force in 1942. Its designation was USAAF Station 106. The airfield became a major base for the USAF and many squadrons were based there during WW2 – 15th Bombardment Squadron (Light), 97th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 305th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 96th Bombardment Group (Heavy) and 384th Bombardment Group (Heavy).

 

RAF Market Harborough Battle HQ

Explored with Winch It In

This wasn’t the main objective of the day (a list of ROC Posts were) and I’m not big on WW2 Defences but it would have been rude to drive past this so we stopped for a quick nosey.

Site: RAF Market Harborough.

Opened – 1943
Closed – 1947

Units stationed at RAF Market Harborough:

No 1683 (Bomber) Defence Training Flt (3 Feb – 1 Aug  1944)
No 92 Group (1944)
No 26 Air Crew Holding Unit (21 Aug 1945 – 18 Sep 1946)
No 113 Storage Sub-site, No 273 Maintenance Unit (Feb 1946 – 5 Oct 1949)

RAF Market Harborough was mainly used as an Operational Training Unit throughout it’s active days with No. 14 OTU flying Vickers Wellingtons, Airspeed AS.10 Oxfords, Hawker Hurricanes and some Curtiss P-40 Tomahawks from No.1683 Bomber Defence Training Flight.

Today very little of the main airfield survives as a lot of the site has now been demolished to make way for a Business Park.

The control tower and all of the technical site was demolished to make way for HMP Gartree which opened in 1965.

The Battle Headquarters is a TYPE 11008/41, the room layout is pretty much the same
in all of these and this has the usual OP, Main Office, PBX Room, Messenger Room and Toilet.

Some internal fittings remain and despite the farmers attempt at burying the HQ all rooms are still accessible, as are the hatches, albeit with some ‘interesting’ floor levels. The main Escape Hatch still has an intact ladder with a clear entry to the main rooms and the other escape hatch is also still open but partially buried. The wooden door to the Elsan Chemical toilet is still in place too.

Despite evidence of some flooding the entire Battle HQ was damp but free of standing water.