Biggin Hill

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Today was an Open House Day, which we have every year in London, when you're allowed to visit some places not normally open to the public. I headed for Biggin Hill - really a village in Kent, but within the capital's M25 orbital Motorway and part of the London Borough of Bromley.

Those who went were given access to the airfield - it's still a very busy civil airport - and shown around some surviving WW2 buildings including pillboxes, air raid and aircraft blast shelters. I took about 40 pictures with my trusty Leica, which will take a few days to set up online - but here are a few from the Samsung digital camera (the B Team) to whet your appetites...

This is St George's RAF Chapel of Remembrance. I told the (obviously ex-RAF) man there that, with permission, I'd post pictures on the net & he asked me to mention the fact that they're on the A233 between Keston & Westerham, Main Road, Biggin Hill village. Open 7 days a week, 11:00 - 16:00.

In the monochrome picture you can see what it must have looked like in the 1950s, including real Spitfire (left) & Hurricane gate guardians. Then there's my colour picture of the chapel today (literally today! as I write this). The other two pix show today's perspex gate guardians - nice enough, I suppose, but not quite the same as seeing the REAL THING...

I prefer the Hurri 'cos it's 1940 Battle of Britain vintage. The Spitfire's obviously a Mk IX, but apparently flew from BH later in the War. Note that the real aeroplane guardians didn't have registrations painted on (probably still an "Official Secret"), whereas the perspex models do, at least, include them.

Lots more to come! Watch this space...;)

[Ferry_vO]

Nice pictures, Ralf !

Looking forward to see some more !

:icon29:

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Now the 35mm film has been developed, so I can post some more pictures of the Chapel, surviving WW2 buildings and some views of the airfield and aircraft that are there.

The blue plaque on the Chapel gate was obviously put there very recently. It seems to me rather unnecessary; it's the Hurricane & Spitfire that people driving past will notice! It may be that the London Borough of Bromley owns the airfield now, so they can put their particular interpretation of WW2 there...

Luckily it seems that the Royal Air Force still run their Chapel at least (note RAF flag flying outside it). In the second picture you can see the interior, with Battle Honours around the altar. These are :

DUNKIRK - BATTLE OF BRITAIN - DIEPPE - PAS DE CALAIS - NORMANDY -ARNHEM - RUHR - RHINE

There are also Allied guidons, including Czechoslovakia, Poland and Norway on the left and, of course, :US-flag: on the right. I'm not sure, but that might be the Irish Tricolour on the far right hand side! (It's possible as many volunteers did come from Eire, including top pilots like Paddy Finucane and John Kilmartin).

Then two pictures of Dutch interest : Sorry, the flash has slightly spoiled the shot of those nice Delft tiles which are on the north wall. In the Memorial Garden was this intriguing slab from Maastricht. As Ferry will confirm, "Staar" means a cataract of the eye in Dutch ('Ster' = star). Unless it means something else in Flemish (Willy?), the significance of this remains obscure. My guess is that it refers to some particular RAF operation in Maastricht - probably something like a Mosquito attack on Gestapo Headquarters. No doubt someone can tell us more...

[Ferry_vO]

'Staar' is dialect for 'Ster'(star) in Limburgs. The star is part of the logo of the city of Maastricht.

I found a few stories of the RAF bombing targets near Maastricht in early 1940, in the time of the invasion of the Belgium and Netherlands and the battle of France.

Might have to ask one of our members, Panaka, who lives in Maastricht.

[Panaka]

Several things it could be:
I personally know of only one raid by the RAF.
Two planes made a daring and successfull raid on the road and rail bridges.

During the war several planes went down in the vicinity. One of wich within 200m of where I'm sitting (Lancaster). There are a lot of memorial crosses in the region to remember the crews of the aircraft. One cross is within 50m of where I live and is for a pilot. I don't know if he was USAAC or RAF.

Early on two resitance groups were formed here. One was called the 'RAF group' and was part of a pilot rescue line going to Switzerland or Spain. I think this last one is probably it.

Edit: I just found out that my Great Grandfather was probably part of that group.

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Thanks for that Panaka! But maybe it's the RAF that owes thanks to Maastricht for the Resistance Groups, especially if they helped shot-down aircrew to escape back to England. Very interesting about the dialect word, "Staar".

Two rather boring pictures, but they give an idea of the airfield, not just its perimeter. The first one shows the modern runway which is North-South (taken from the south end of it). Quite an interesting aircraft had just landed, but I wasn't quick enough! You can just make him out.

The second picture is taken from the NE corner of the field, looking SW. Note that the wartime runway ran East-West and it was concrete. There is a secondary E-W runway there, but it's been moved slightly from where the historic one was. Biggin Hill is exactly that : a hill with a large plateau, 600ft above sea level.

[Ralf Roggeveen]

So now we are at the NE corner of the field.

The first picture is, of course, the most interesting of all. Yes, it is a Battle of Britain vintage prefabricated wooden hut, still in situ after 65 years! The man with the beard is Ian Palmer of the Air Scouts who conducted the tour. He said that this humble hut was once a Squadron's Front Line HQ. Later it was used as a Store for 'bits of aeroplanes' (as Mr Palmer put it), but now it's empty except for spiders and ghosts...

Another view of the famous hut with a mysterious Yugoslav aircraft beside it. If you're anything like me you look at things like that and just think 'Cessna', but as it's a taildragger, on second thoughts, maybe no. Can anyone identify it? Obviously there's a modern hangar behind, but the last BoB wooden hut at Biggin Hill is surely one of the most evocative and important buildings in England. Going...going...gone in a few months' time.

Not far from the historic hut is a surviving row of WW2 blast pens. They are still popular with aeroplane owners who can't afford hangar fees, providing a little shelter from the elements, if not from the Luftwaffe. In the second picture (#4) you can see the entrance to the air raid shelter immediately behind the pen. Just behind Mr Palmer there was a WW2 vintage two-wheel small trailer which I kick myself for not photographing! It was reduced to being a sort of toolbox, but once would have carried batteries for re-charging aircraft engines. It was blue with yellow wheels and very ancient, bald, flat tyres.

We went into the shelter, just corrugated iron sheets bent into a long arch & covered in concrete. If anyone is VERY interested I did take a picture in there, but it's easy enough to imagine without wasting posting space! Perhaps the most interesting aspect was that the iron had, in three-quarters of a century, hardly rusted at all - the place was clearly water- as well as bomb-proof.

[Ferry_vO]

Do you mean they will take that old wooden building down ?? That would be a real waste I guess.

The aircraft is an Utva 66 ; I entered the registration in Google. :)

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Two WW2 structures nearby.

In the woods behind the airfield perimeter fence and beyond the road that goes around it there still stands this large bombproof building. Another, nearby is more ruined and overgrown, but the Air Scouts had kindly cleared the inside of this one and cut a path to it through the undergrowth. This was used by the groundcrews of Boulton & Paul Defiants operating as nightfighters with 264 Squadron, based at Biggin Hill in early 1941. They were trying to stop my (future) mother & grandmother from being killed, and my present house from being blown up, during the London Blitz. As everyone knows, Defiants were not a success - the Squadron moved to West Malling & took to Mosquitoes instead.

Again, the interior of this building (#2) looks boring, but those bits of wood are all that remains of bunk beds that were in there during the War. This was where the nightfighter groundcrews could find shelter when Biggin Hill itself was targetted. Incidentally, it was frequently bombed, including in the summer of 1940. The Germans knew perfectly well that this was the most important RAF base protecting the City of London and had run frequent recce missions photographing it, including from Lufthansa aircraft flying into nearby Croydon before the War!

The other 2 pictures show an M/G bunker which is within the perimeter fence, behind the blast pens. One or two others still survive even closer to the runways. Mr Palmer pointed out that they are based on German WW1 designs from the Western Front. The interior shot shows a metal bar (pointing towards the airfield) which must have once held a Lewis* gun. This pillbox was actually built AROUND a tree (which would have provided natural camouflage from the air), but woods have encroached, blocking any 'field of fire' it might once have had. Of course they were there ready for the parachute attack that never came...

(*Only ancient weapons on the ground in 1940! Brens came later.)

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Utva 66!?!?! New to me! Thanks, Ferdinando!

Mr Palmer seemed to suggest that the poor dear hut was, indeed, beyond its useful existence...You think of mad schemes like having it perfectly preserved and rebuilt in a museum and labelled, but there's also something to be said for it's ultimate loss. Kind of makes our appreciation of it more special, rather than keeping such things in aspic, save them in your heart :engel016:

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Dry your tears for the hut and consider these aeroplanes that I photographed around the airfield!

#1 was in one of the blast pens. Hmmm, interesting & a bit mysterious. 'RAF' livery with US registration. Port engine missing. No doubt the owner now has it on his kitchen table & he's working on it. No doubt Ferry will look up N181WW and tell us exactly what it is!

#2 the cat could get, as it's very clearly labelled, a Lake LA-4. In theory it's an amphibian, though this particular one seems to have had its floats removed (pilots take note if you attempt to land it on water...) Judging by the personalised registration G-LAKE it's there to sell itself & other Lakes - might do better in the Lake District (NW England)?

#3 is as close as I thought I could get, running out of film! The interesting aeroplane is that old trainer on the left with chequered nose & tail...

Finally (#4) inside a hangar. G-BIMX (Ferry, wat zou dat?) a neat little microlight. When I arrived it - or something similar - was just heading out & I WISH I'd photographed it! (Years of getting into trouble for taking pictures I shouldn't have done has made me wary). It's a pusher, nose down & that's its 6 o'clock (as you can tell from the back-to-front wing registration).

Beyond it is that big enormous of aeroplane with the jaguar on it...didn't even notice that when I was taking the picture! Whatever can it be?

(Incidentally these pictures are a tribute to Leica's zoom & (especially) flash abilities. The two flash pictures were taken in almost pitch darkness.)

[Ferry_vO]

Didn't even have to look up the first one, as it is a Beagle Basset of course.
If you'll look at page 13 of the august edition of Aeroplane, you'll find that same aircraft with both engines installed.

Here's a picture of the Ryanair 737-200 Jaguar logojet before it's decommission. Didn't know it is now stored at Biggin Hill !

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/699540/M/

Hard to tell from that distance, but the trainer you are referring to could very well be a Yakovlev Yak-52.
Possibly this one ? : http://www.airliners.net/open.file/921891/M/

And here you have the G-BIMX (A Rutan Vari-Eze) during a visit ot Denmark with a sister ship. Looks like there's another one parked to the left in your picture, Ralf.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/393038/M/

[CWD]

'Staar' is dialect for 'Ster'(star) in Limburgs. The star is part of the logo of the city of Maastricht.

I found a few stories of the RAF bombing targets near Maastricht in early 1940, in the time of the invasion of the Belgium and Netherlands and the battle of France.

Might have to ask one of our members, Panaka, who lives in Maastricht.

Coincidentally since we were discussing the book on the FS9 forum, a bombing raid on Maastricht figures fairly prominently in Derek Robinson's Piece of Cake.

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Ferry strikes again - surely all correct. The Yak looks so American in that livery, it fooled me. Wonder where the rest of that 737 went?

As for Maastricht - it seems more likely that the memorial in the Biggin Hill Chapel is dedicated to something like Mosquitoes that flew from there, rather than Lancasters? More likely to find out from the RAF...I should have bought the guide book for the Chapel! :redf:

[Panaka]

Did a bit of searching, but nothing to be found in the books I have about local history.

It only mentions the "RAF" resistance group. And that any crew or pilots that survived crashes in the area would normaly be picked up and in hiding before the germans even left the barracks. Turns out that grandpa had different pilots in the cellar for most of the war.

Asked him about plane crashes during the war, but he could only tell me the ones on this side (eastern side) of the city.
A german fighter that flew into a balloon in 1940, a B-17 or B-24, a ME-109 that came down together with the before mentioned bomber and two unknown crashes.
Although, he did have a cool story involving a german gun battery, an american spotter plane, a counterbarrage by heave artilery and Germans (or pieces of them) ending up in the trees.

[Ralf Roggeveen]

I've got the Chapel guy's phone number somewhere, so will try to ring & find out about that Maastricht thing. Could it be that the RAF did something like a food delivery there? Either in the Hunger Winter of '44-'45, or just after the War? :confused:

BTW : The tricolour flag is actually FRENCH - I have a clearer photograph of it. Obviously they are one of the Allied Nations of WW2, even if their contribution was somewhat patchy...there's an old combat flightsimmer's legend that you'll never get a decent WW2 North African game (along the lines of Il-2 or the CFS series) because all the most interesting French aircraft & pilots would be on the wrong (Vichy/Axis) side! ;)

[Panaka]

No food delivery.
Maastricht was liberated by the US 'Old Hickory' division in september 44. Have it from first hand acount that food could get short, but never that short.