What a fascinating thread to have belatedly stumbled across!
I have not often come across reference to Merrifield but I also spent a lot of my formative years close to that place.
In another life I worked on farms in that area. There were places where it was almost easier to pick up pieces of bent and corroded aluminium and thick plexiglass than it was to pick up the potatoes!
Local legend appears to be confirmed by this thread that the aircraft were caught out by wx, tried and failed at Weston Zoyland and returned to the Merrifield area. The legend says that lights from an intensive chicken unit at Puckington or Isle Abbots were then mistaken for the runway lights at Merrifield and they just ploughed in.
Just one question for Shacks though: I only ever remember seeing two RAF gravestones in Ilton churchyard and I knew it pretty well. Where was the overspill burial?
So BEagle, YOU and your mate were personally responsible for the stink that used to hang over Merrifield and Ilton were you? You have a lot to answer for! I also remember the grass drying unit there; I think it was probably owned by John D was it not, who also farmed at Dowlish?
I just think it (and many others) must have been amazing places ten years or so prior to your tenure, with the temporary American cities, and busy aerial activity.