BBC Secret Britain and 161 sqn
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Location: Lixwm,Flintshire
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Another Time Another Place
After some adventures Peter was arrested on the instructions of Anthony Blunt, the well known traitor. Strangely Anthony Blunt was known as a
communist sympathiser
communist sympathiser
Remember the convoys, PQ17?
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So far the only people who seem to know anything at all about this place is the BBC, though there seems to be no real evidence of an "airfield" here at all.
If anything did happen there older members of the local community will know of it, as would local farmers. A couple of evenings spent in local pubs might produce something.
A 6000yd runway is ridiculous, you'd struggle to get 700 on that land so that piece of "information" - about the only "fact" quoted anywhere is just plain wrong. This land would be waterlogged and sometimes/often flooded in winter which is not operationally helpful, so why restrict/hazard operations on boggy ground when so many hard, dry airfields were available?
The vertical photo shows precious little evidence of removal of Nissen huts to my eye, nothing that big seems to have been disturbed, but why bother to remove them anyway? Famers would probably have loved them and the RAF was surely far too busy with important matters at the time. What was there to conceal by removing them in 1944 when ops there were finished? Nothing. Just a marsh. None of this seems to make much sense.
I can believe it may have been useful as a training field (imagine night navexs into a given field in flat terrain for training pilots for ops into Holland) or even for ops to Holland - but again, why the remoteness? Other SOE ops of extreme importance and secrecy happened from Tempsford, Tangmere and satellites in far more populous areas without evident concern for security, and far, far more convenient for training facilities etc - this place is remote even today. Operationally it would have been advantageous range-wise over Tempsford and Newmarket for all Holland and the nothern part of Belgium - by as much as 140miles on a round-trip to Arnhem, say. (via Tempsford 540miles, Newmarket 500, Heigham 400).
Any Lysander experts here know if this is significant in range/payload/performance terms?
Landing strip perhaps, but airfield? I hae me doots!
If anything did happen there older members of the local community will know of it, as would local farmers. A couple of evenings spent in local pubs might produce something.
A 6000yd runway is ridiculous, you'd struggle to get 700 on that land so that piece of "information" - about the only "fact" quoted anywhere is just plain wrong. This land would be waterlogged and sometimes/often flooded in winter which is not operationally helpful, so why restrict/hazard operations on boggy ground when so many hard, dry airfields were available?
The vertical photo shows precious little evidence of removal of Nissen huts to my eye, nothing that big seems to have been disturbed, but why bother to remove them anyway? Famers would probably have loved them and the RAF was surely far too busy with important matters at the time. What was there to conceal by removing them in 1944 when ops there were finished? Nothing. Just a marsh. None of this seems to make much sense.
I can believe it may have been useful as a training field (imagine night navexs into a given field in flat terrain for training pilots for ops into Holland) or even for ops to Holland - but again, why the remoteness? Other SOE ops of extreme importance and secrecy happened from Tempsford, Tangmere and satellites in far more populous areas without evident concern for security, and far, far more convenient for training facilities etc - this place is remote even today. Operationally it would have been advantageous range-wise over Tempsford and Newmarket for all Holland and the nothern part of Belgium - by as much as 140miles on a round-trip to Arnhem, say. (via Tempsford 540miles, Newmarket 500, Heigham 400).
Any Lysander experts here know if this is significant in range/payload/performance terms?
Landing strip perhaps, but airfield? I hae me doots!
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 3rd Nov 2010 at 14:35.
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An Older View
No, we were not. We were Russian sympathisers, but most of us had seen the Soviet regime for the evil thing it was
Dick
Dick
We were kicked out of Europe, struggling in the desert, the U-boats were about sink 400,000 tons of shipping in one month and the Americans were not helping us. The Russians were our NEW best friends.
Besides every Russian was a communist as was proved by their elections where the communists were elected by polling 100% of the vote.
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Martham, Norfolk
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Secret Island, Martham
My family have lived in Martham for many generations and the local story about the secret airstrip here is that it was set up with lights etc to look like an airfield for the purpose of preventing the real airstrip, RAF Ludham, from being bombed during the war. It was to act as a decoy, with the intention that the Germans would bomb the 'fake' airstrip being as that would be the first they would see from the air. Not sure if this is correct but it makes sense.
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Heigham Holmes
My family have lived in Martham for many generations and the local story about the secret airstrip here is that it was set up with lights etc to look like an airfield for the purpose of preventing the real airstrip, RAF Ludham, from being bombed during the war. It was to act as a decoy, with the intention that the Germans would bomb the 'fake' airstrip being as that would be the first they would see from the air. Not sure if this is correct but it makes sense.
There was a decoy airfield, but not at Heigham Holmes. It was just north of the farm: Winterton Holmes TG 477213. I know the builder, who as a young man dismantled the lights and their plinths. In the farm complex is a old military building...probably used as the accommodation for the guys lighting the lights.
Still trying to find out more on the illusive Heigham Holmes.
Last edited by Deck Clear; 9th Jul 2014 at 14:53.
