RAF Kirmington
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RAF Kirmington
Lincolnshire has an aviation heritage as rich as that of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk or Kent.
This memorial in the village of Kirmington is to those who served in 166 Squadron at the airbase, which is now Humberside International Airport.
The memorial includes a propeller blade from a Lancaster (not of 166 Squadron) which was shot down over Holland.
Among those who were based here was actor Donald Pleasance who was a wireless operator. His Lancaster was shot down in 1944 and upon being captured he spent the rest of the war as a POW at Stalag-Luft One. He later starred in the movie The Great Escape.
Below; WAAF barracks
Some nice shot’s there Ian. (Highy is a contact of mine)
Some nice shot’s there Ian. (Highy is a contact of mine)
Nice selection of shots. A good time out with a likeminded enthusiast, great 😉
Nice one Ian . Its a shame I could not be there ! Maybe next time .
I always think that the props are the most emotive part of a crashed aircraft !
Great shots…Very interesting, more than just photos you give us…
Great memorial, a rather historic location..
Nicely composed photo Ian and a fitting monument to the bomber crews.. I guess with the nice flat terrain Lincolnshire has more than it’s fair share of WW2 bases.
nice one Ian. didn’t know that DP had been a POW
Another place to explore … my list is getting longer
great photos ian
Interesting set of photos, Ian.
Those old propeller blades from crashed aicrafts always make simple, yet very moving memorials.
interesting place Ian
They turned out very well indeed mate, waiting for the gaps in the clouds paid off especially like the light inside the barracks.
Thanks for the credit, not sure about being a "local historian" though!
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/cachelog] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/bazylek] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/gastephen] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/42423575@N00] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/solarscot] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/29730035@N04] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/bill_fawcett] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/reflectionsreturn] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/25305713@N04] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/nondesigner] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/highy]
Thanks all.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/bill_fawcett] Yeah lots of bases Bill, they are all over the place. May not be able to see them on the ground, but from Google earth they leap out at you!
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/bazylek] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/pasujoba44] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/nondesigner]
Agreed there is something very poignant about prop blades, either in memorials or at crash sites. Another site we visited on Saturday had a prop blade in the memorial.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/gastephen] I didn’t know either. It’s what I like about local history, these little connections here and there with the familiar and the famous.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/highy] You research stuff, locate places, organise memorials, get other people involved and share that info with other people. Makes you a local historian in my book!
Great image and background info Ian as always – good to see Highy in there too with well deserved credit – must have been great to meet up as Al’s a valued contact too – he’s always complimentary and obviously so enthusiastic about our aviation heritage as you are. Great work you two :-))
great of you to share this series, always an insightful experience – esp. seeing inside the old WAAF barracks. i can almost imagine them ‘as they were’ from the interior shot. ’tis something of a shame that there wasn’t thought to keep such sites ‘up to scratch’ for posterities sake … but then i guess on the other side of the world at the end of the war they were tipping perfectly good navy aircraft off carriers and into the sea. i guess they were just glad it was all over with.
nice top shot with the breeze in the Union Jack too. great colour and light.
thanks for yr visits Ian, am still on break but have stopped in on you, Paul and Amy.
Always full of intruiging details, I love your stream. Your top shot with the flag is excellent. You can’t even try to imagine going through all that to star in a film called the great escape. Well I can’t anyway, fascinating.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/29288836@N00]
Thanks Rob. Al knows his stuff, aye. Flickr is cool, have met with a number of people now, either by accident or through arranging a tour of crash sites and places like this.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/angwickham]
Cheers Ang, always goood to see you around. Hope you are getting by. There are places where old buildings are preserved, RAF Elvington for one. But there is something in seeing them slowly decay too.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/stezzer]
Thanks Stezz. Pleased you find it interesting. Wonder sometimes if people think I go on about the war too much…. But then folk keep looking, so I keep uploading!
I have a book on Essex Airfields in my collection, maybe one day I will get to see some of em. Fairlop, Hornchurch and North Weald are the closest to us. There is a military event at Damyns Hall this weekend and I may venture over there if the forecast is good. Apparently the Memorial flight will pass over on one of the days 🙂
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/reflectionsreturn]
Be good to be at an old airfield as the BBF flys over. Be good to see some photos of the se bases even without a Lanc overhead. But what’s that you say? A good forecast for this weekend??
when is the next memorial service please
When I was a boy,1950,we used to play in these huts,there were loads of them,Then a Lovely family called Colmans bought the old vicarage and turned them into a piggery!
Hope they are still there Graham? It is 7 or 8 years since these photos were taken.
As a kid in the 80s, we played in an old air raid shelter in Bury but it’s long since been filled in and forgotten about, just a bit of overgrown concrete visible where the entrance was now.