It wasn’t until the next phase of airfield building, the great wartime programme, that hardened runways were included on most new construction projects. A standard three-runway layout in the familiar A-pattern emerged with the main runway extending to 1,400 yards and the subsidiaries to 1,100 yards was included in most new bomber airfields built after 1939 but, with the introduction of four-engined aircraft, these were extended to 2,000 yards and 1,400 yards respectively.
Aircrew of Wellington F-Firkin, 166 Squadron, at Kirmington. (Norman Ellis)
UV-K, a Mk IV Wellington of 460 Squadron, pictured at Breighton in 1942. The photograph was taken on a Kodak Box Brownie camera by pilot Bob Clark, who finished his tour with the squadron on this aircraft. (Author’s collection)
The introduction of hardened runways was to lead to the temporary closure of many of the pre-war airfields for runway construction, mainly during 1943.
The wartime airfield building programme was probably the greatest feat of civil engineering ever undertaken in Lincolnshire. When the war began six bomber airfields had either been built or were nearing completion. By the end of 1943 another 25 would have been opened or were almost finished, and this was in addition to airfields for fighters, Coastal Command and training. It was a mammoth undertaking, particularly as Lincolnshire was only a part, albeit an important one, in the chain of wartime airfields stretching from one end of the country to the another.
As far as 1 Group was concerned, it was to occupy 18 of the county’s airfields at one time or another together with two in Nottinghamshire and four in Yorkshire, 13 of which were wartime-built aerodromes.
Among the first of these was Grimsby, which, despite its official name, was known by all as Waltham, after the village it bordered. Before the war it had been Grimsby’s municipal airport, home to various flying clubs and had been used extensively by the Civil Air Guard, which was to provide large numbers of young men for the RAF at the outbreak of war. By early 1940 the airfield was already being used by the Army and in April it was formally requisitioned from its owners, Grimsby Borough Council, by the Air Ministry for a fee of £1,200 a year, something of a bargain even in those days.
Tenders were immediately let for an airfield with three hardened runways, each 1,000 yards long and 50 yards wide, and associated buildings at an estimated cost of £500,000 and it went to Chapmans of Leicester. The contract stipulated that building priority must go to the runways and for labour Chapmans recruited many of the fish dock workers laid off in Grimsby after much of the port’s fishing fleet was taken over by the Admiralty. The runways themselves were to have foundations three feet deep and work got under way immediately. Slag from the steelworks at Scunthorpe was brought in by lorry but, as the year went on, it was clear the work was falling behind schedule. Chapmans’ contract was ended and Tarslag of Wolverhampton was brought in. Despite the harsh winter there was no let up in the work. Men worked 12-hour shifts and there was no respite at weekends. By now slag was being brought by train to Grimsby where it was unloaded by hand in sidings before being shovelled into a fleet of trucks and taken to Waltham. In January 1941 the contractors were ordered to extend the runways, one of 1,600 yards and the other two to 1,400 yards in line with the Air Ministry’s new airfield specifications.
By the late summer of 1941 Wellington bombers of 142 Squadron at Binbrook began using the runways and dispersals at Waltham before eventually moving in officially in November. When they left a year later the runways were extended once again in time for the arrival of the Lancaster with this time limestone from local quarries being used in the construction.
It had taken some 18 months to build Waltham virtually from scratch. Within two years Lincolnshire airfields were being built far quicker. Ludford Magna, for example, took an optimistically-claimed 10 months to build and it was no ordinary airfield. At almost 430ft above sea level, it was the highest bomber airfield in the country and, because of the topography, the main runway had to be built north to south, instead of the usual south west-north east, a geographical abnormality which was later to cause problems for the pilots of Lancasters attempting landings there. Clearing the site before construction began proved a major task, including the complete demolition of all the buildings at Highfields Farm and taking the top off the village windmill as it lay in line with the main runway. It was a bleak, windswept place at the best of times yet the main contractors, George Wimpey & Co, had the place built in near record time, work starting in June 1942 and being completed by March the following year, although when the ground echelon of its one and only resident squadron arrived they found much work still to do, so much so that the camp cinema was used as sleeping quarters for the first six months of their time there. Ludford was never planned as anything other than a temporary airfield and Wimpey’s £803,000 contract included the provision of a perimeter track, seven hangars (Ludford was earmarked as one of Bomber Command’s new ‘Base’ stations), seven domestic sites, two messes, a communal site and sick quarters, sufficient to accommodate a maximum of 1,953 men and 305 women.
Flying control at Wickenby. The R/T operator is Mary Ormerod, (Wickenby Archive)
A month after starting work at Ludford Wimpeys also began construction on the neighbouring airfield at Kelstern which, if anything, was even bleaker than Ludford, lacking the proximity of a village, pub or main road. Kelstern was built on 400 acres of farmland and its construction involved the closure of a section of the Binbrook-South Elkington road, something which happened with some regularity during airfield construction. It, too, was an A-Class airfield, with the regulation 2,000- and two 1,400-yard runways, perimeter track, 36 hardstandings, three hangars and technical and domestic sites, with accommodation for 1,585 men and 346 women. Wimpey’s contract for Kelstern was £810,000.
Virtually all the buildings on airfields like Kelstern and Ludford were prefabricated. Hangars were using either T2 or B1 specification (Ludford had both), and the technical and domestic sites were usually housed in Maycrete buildings or the ubiquitous Nissen huts, buildings which became almost synonymous with Lincolnshire during the war and immediate post-war years and many examples of which still survive.
It was estimated that the average three-runway airfield needed around a million cubic yards of excavation, 603,000 square yards of surfacing involving around 242,000 square yards of concrete. Add to that 34 miles of drainage, 10 miles of cable ducts and seven miles of water mains and it is easy to see how the scale of this work dwarfed anything which had gone before in Lincolnshire.
By the middle of 1942 virtually all airfield construction in Britain was in the hands of half a dozen of the country’s largest construction companies. Between them they employed 127,000 men, many recruited from Ireland, using the latest machinery imported from the United States. A further 400,000 were employed on other airfield-associated work.
While the rate of building had increased enormously, the quality of the airfields decreased notably. Waltham was a far better built airfield than either Kelstern or Ludford and it showed particularly on the accommodation sites where foundations laid for Nissen huts were often seemed to follow the contours of the land rather than the bubble in a spirit level. But this was of little consequence in the rush to get the airfields built and the bomber squadrons flying and that is what contractors like Wimpeys and the men who worked for them did so spectacularly well.
As we have already seen, 1 Group began life on airfields designed and built in peace time, Newton, Binbrook and then Swinderby. It was to expand into others, Hemswell in Lincolnshire, Syerston in Nottinghamshire and Lindholme in South Yorkshire. It was also to take over Lincolnshire’s most famous airfield at Scampton, but that was still a long way away.
The first wartime-build airfield allocated to 1 Group was Elsham Wolds, perched on the edge of the Wolds not far from the Humber. 103 Squadron went there in July 1941, at the height of summer when, according to the squadron historian ‘the major drawbacks of the station were not readily apparent’. What was app
arent was just how big the place was. There were no dispersals on pre-war stations. Bombers were parked on or around the aprons in front of hangars but at Elsham they were on the new frying pan-shaped concrete dispersals dotted around the perimeter and crews were no longer able to walk out to their aircraft. An internal ‘bus service’ started at Elsham while ground crew found it advisable to equip themselves with bikes.
One major change, however, was the introduction of concrete runways. Aircraft could now take off in all weathers with maximum bomb and fuel load and that fact alone was to alter altogether the nature of the air war over Europe.
After Elsham came Snaith, near Goole in Yorkshire. This was to be the new home of 150 Squadron, albeit on a temporary basis and was the first of a string of new airfields in Yorkshire to be used by 1 Group until its own Lincolnshire airfields were ready. Snaith, the remains of which today can still be seen from the M62, was later to become a 4 Group station.
Next came Waltham in November 1941, followed by another Yorkshire airfield, Breighton, in January 1942. That May saw the opening of Ingham as a satellite of Hemswell, the odd airfield out in all this. Ingham, which lay actually within the circuit of neighbouring Scampton, was opened with grass runways and was the only bomber station in Lincolnshire which was to remain so. It was from Ingham that the Poles of 300 Squadron were to fly the final operation in the Bomber Command career of the Wellington bomber.
A third Yorkshire airfield was transferred to 1 Group in September 1942. Holme-on-Spalding Moor near Market Weighton and it was to be the home of two 1 Group squadrons for the next nine months before reverting to 4 Group control. In the same month Wickenby opened as the new home of 12 Squadron.
Two further airfields opened before the end of the year, Kirmington and Blyton, the latter becoming one of 1 Group’s major training bases.
Ludford and Kelstern both opened in the summer of 1943 and before the year ended the Group’s final bomber airfield at North Killingholme was completed, becoming operational in the first few days of 1944. The final new airfield to join 1 Group’s inventory was Sandtoft, which opened in February 1944. It was only ever used for heavy conversion training for new crews and later in the year was transferred, along with other HCUs, to the new 7 (Training) Group.
In the autumn of 1944 there was a major reorganisation of airfields in Lincolnshire which saw three 5 Group airfields, Scampton, Dunholme Lodge and Fiskerton, transferred to 1 Group, Dunholme operating only briefly before being closed to flying because of the intense pressure on air space around Lincoln.
Two further airfields worth a mention are Goxhill and Sturgate. Goxhill had been planned as a bomber airfield and, as such, would have been allocated to 1 Group but the proximity of the balloon barrage protecting the port of Hull meant that it was unsuitable for heavy aircraft and it eventually became a fighter training base for the USAAF. In its early days it did, however, house 1 Group’s Target Towing Flight before that eventually moved to Binbrook. Sturgate was, perhaps, the state-of-the-art wartime airfield, complete with fog dispersal equipment but, by the time it opened in September 1944 was war had almost passed it by. Its runways were used occasionally by aircraft from 1 Group’s Lancaster Finishing School at nearby Hemswell and it did house the 1 Group Aircrew School but it was never to become operational.
Wellington R1588 of 103 Squadron. It crashed into the North Sea in September 1942 while being operated by 22 OTU. (Elsham Wolds Association)
Chapter 5
‘Right on the Chin!’
Spring and Summer 1942:
A Change of Tactics and Leadership
Thursday, 1 January 1942 dawned grey and cold across much of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. It was the start of another year of war and, it has to be said, the spirit of optimism amongst the RAF’s bomber squadrons had now been replaced by one of grim determination in the face of mounting losses and a growing realisation that the aerial assault on Germany was not going well. Despite all that 1941 had brought, it was clear that Hitler’s industrial strength had been barely affected by the night bombing campaign. Photo reconnaissance of targets showed widely scattered bombing with little of the concentration needed to inflict serious damage. And, as if that wasn’t enough, the evidence was there for all to see of the growing strength of the Luftwaffe’s defensive capabilities. The result was a scaling back of attacks and the inevitable question: was Bomber Command worth the huge resources in both men and material being invested in it? It is interesting to note that at one stage of the war, a third of Britain’s industrial capacity was, in one way or another, devoted to the bombing campaign.
In the autumn of 1940 Luftwaffe Generalmajor Josef Kammhuber had been put in charge of Germany’s night fighter defences. It cannot have seemed to have been the most glamorous of jobs but Kammhuber was to prove to be perhaps the most effective of all the Luftwaffe’s wartime commanders. He started by reorganising defences, building a chain of searchlights and acoustic detectors across Belgium and Holland, quickly dubbed the ‘Kammhuber Line’. And in the Me110C, which had proved so vulnerable to RAF fighters in the Battle of Britain, Kammhuber found the ideal night fighter, sturdy, dependable and capable of packing a punch.
The Dornier 215 and the Luftwaffe’s ‘maid-of-all-work’, the Ju88, were also redeveloped as even more effective night fighters.
German radar development was rapid and by early 1941 he had at his disposal a string of ground control radar sites, each equipped with a single Freya radar for detecting bombers and two Wurzburg sets for tracking aircraft. Night fighters operated in pre-determined boxes and, whenever a British bomber entered one of those boxes, ground controllers were able to direct the 110 towards their target. The major flaw with this system is that the controllers could only handle one target at a time but, with Bomber Command aircraft still flying individually, it had worked well throughout 1941. The Luftwaffe had also carried out successful trials with an airborne radar system, the Lichenstein SN-2, and towards the end of the year began rolling these out to their night fighter units, now partially re-equipped with superior Ju88s and Dornier 215s.
A very early picture of a 460 Squadron Wellington at Breighton. The Squadron’s codes were later changed from UV to AR. (Keen collection)
Just how successful this combination proved to be was demonstrated on the night of January 20-21 1942 when 20 1 and 3 Group Wellingtons and five Hampdens from 5 Group were sent to Emden. Standard practice was still for aircraft to be allotted take off times and crews were then free to plot their own routes to and from the target. The outward bound bombers were quickly picked up by German radar operators and Ju88Cs of 6/NJG2 of Dornier 215s of 11/NJG2, both based at Leeuwarden in Holland, were scrambled to intercept and in the space of just 69 minutes four of the attackers had been shot down, one of the Hampdens from 49 Squadron at Scampton, and three Wellingtons, one from 12 Squadron, another from 142 Squadron and the third from 101 Squadron (later to join 1 Group), then based at Oakington. All three of the Wellingtons fell to the guns of a single Ju88, flown by Oblt Ludwig Becker who was accompanied by his radio operator Fw Josef Straub. All three aircraft came down close to Terschelling in the Frisian Islands, the area covered by Becker’s defensive box. Just four RAF crew survived, all from the 12 Squadron Wellington.
But changes were coming. Bomber Command tactics were already under review, a new leader was waiting in the wings and the first of the ‘heavies’, four-engined Halifaxes and Stirlings, were already in squadron service, although not with 1 Group squadrons which would have to soldier on with their Wellingtons for some considerable time yet.
The chain of events which were to lead to the first of those significant changes, new leadership, began that January when Sir Richard Peirse, was replaced at the head of Bomber Command with AVM Baldwin stepping in as temporary commander until, late in February, Sir Arthur Harris took over. Undoubtedly the most controversial figure in RAF history, Harris was to change the whole nature of the air war against Germany. Single minded to the point of ruthles
sness, Harris drove his bomber force relentlessly over the next three years, doling out devastating blows to the enemy while suffering casualty figures surpassed only by German U-boat crews.
Yet the tactic that Harris was to become associated with, area bombing with all that it entailed, was not of his making, although it is clear it was one he took to with some relish. The directive which authorised area attacks itself was issued on February 14, 1942 and replaced the previous directive of the previous November ordering Bomber Command to conserve its forces following the mauling it had taken from German night fighters that autumn.
The directive, which had been drafted by the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, AVM Norman Bottomley, stated: ‘The primary objective of your operations should be focused on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular the industrial worker.’ Primary targets were to include the Ruhr cities of Cologne, Duisburg, Dusseldorf and Essen and Bomber Command was told: ‘You are accordingly authorised to employ your forces without restriction.’
The gloves were off and the first major ‘area’ raid quickly followed on March 8-9 when Essen was the target.
Over the previous few months Bomber Command had spent much of its time attacking naval targets, U-boat pens, dock installations and, in particular, bases for German’s large warships. They may have been few in number but their very presence was a major threat to Britain’s fragile trans-Atlantic lifeline. For some time two of these warships, the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, together with the cruiser Prinz Eugen, had been effectively bottled up on France’s Atlantic coast where they were subjective to frequent and heavy attacks by the RAF which had led to over 3,000 tons of bombs being dropped and had cost Bomber Command 127 aircraft.
1 Group Page 6
