Was told this story by a lady in her fifties that lives in Cranwell village, and have no reason to disbelieve it!
She was walking from the camp to the village with a friend of hers on a cold winters late afternoon, very dark, and when they were some way up the path near to the end of the airfield boundary, they both looked up to see a gentleman walking passed who wished them a good evening and tipped is hat to them. They both looked at each other as if to say that doesn't really happen often in this day and age, then looked behind them and no-one was there.
They thought nothing more of it until the next week, when the first lady who was one of the cleaners at Cranwell, was instructed to go and clean a different building which just happenened to be the Engineer/Supply Officer training building. She walked through the door early on the Monday morning to find herself staring at the chap she had seen a few night before! Sir Frank Whittle!
TheBeeKeeper
(DH82b)