INTRODUCTION
Throughout the countryside, sighted from motorway and country lane, the concrete legacy of Britain’s aviation heritage crumbles into obscurity. Unlike the army barracks or navy dockyards that are both prized and protected for their splendid Victorian architecture, year by year, an ever increasing number of wartime airfields disappear under new industrial estates or return to agriculture. Of the 740 airfields in operation during the Second World War, very few remain intact, yet are as important to this country’s national heritage and cultural identity as the aircraft that once flew from them.
RAF Driffield
Opened in 1936, RAF Driffield in the East Riding of Yorkshire became a famous wartime airfield. During the later part of the Second World War, Handley Page Halifax bomber aircraft of No.466 Squadron (Royal Australian Air Force) took off from Driffield’s 6,000ft runway to attack the heart of Nazi occupied Europe. After the war, the aerodrome became home to a number of training schools and night-fighter squadrons, until flying ceased in 1959. RAF Driffield finally closed in 1977 and was handed over to the Royal Corps of Transport, who renamed the site “Alamein Barracks”.
Sadly, like many disused airfields, Driffield lost its control tower, and by the early 1980s saw all three runways removed, while the hangars were converted to store grain. In 1992, the camp changed hands again and was renamed “RAF Staxton Wold – Driffield Site”, until finally closing on June 28th 1996. The actual airfield is now used by the Army Training Estate (ATE) as a "Dry Training Area". The hangars, once owned by the Rural Payments Agency, finally closed during the summer of 2003 and were recently sold to a property development company. In late 2006, the Ministry of Defence announced the camp itself was surplus to requirements and it was subsequently sold in early 2007.
This FREE eBook explores the current state of Britain's aerodrome heritage, which due to complacency, bureaucracy and severe oversight (not to mention a misguided media and ill-informed public) is in danger of being lost forever. This eBook is also the personal account of one man’s fight to save part of his own heritage, that shared (but neglected) by an unappreciative populace. It also details the emotional struggle of being powerless, knowing that you are right and there is nothing you can do to protect the cornerstone of your very character.
That said, the title of this eBook is more of a forewarning than a postscript. Much of former RAF Driffield still exists, but that will change. I hope that this eBook will make a difference before it is too late.
Phillip Rhodes ([email protected])
Kingston upon Hull – England
April 2008
Throughout the countryside, sighted from motorway and country lane, the concrete legacy of Britain’s aviation heritage crumbles into obscurity. Unlike the army barracks or navy dockyards that are both prized and protected for their splendid Victorian architecture, year by year, an ever increasing number of wartime airfields disappear under new industrial estates or return to agriculture. Of the 740 airfields in operation during the Second World War, very few remain intact, yet are as important to this country’s national heritage and cultural identity as the aircraft that once flew from them.
RAF Driffield
Opened in 1936, RAF Driffield in the East Riding of Yorkshire became a famous wartime airfield. During the later part of the Second World War, Handley Page Halifax bomber aircraft of No.466 Squadron (Royal Australian Air Force) took off from Driffield’s 6,000ft runway to attack the heart of Nazi occupied Europe. After the war, the aerodrome became home to a number of training schools and night-fighter squadrons, until flying ceased in 1959. RAF Driffield finally closed in 1977 and was handed over to the Royal Corps of Transport, who renamed the site “Alamein Barracks”.
Sadly, like many disused airfields, Driffield lost its control tower, and by the early 1980s saw all three runways removed, while the hangars were converted to store grain. In 1992, the camp changed hands again and was renamed “RAF Staxton Wold – Driffield Site”, until finally closing on June 28th 1996. The actual airfield is now used by the Army Training Estate (ATE) as a "Dry Training Area". The hangars, once owned by the Rural Payments Agency, finally closed during the summer of 2003 and were recently sold to a property development company. In late 2006, the Ministry of Defence announced the camp itself was surplus to requirements and it was subsequently sold in early 2007.
This FREE eBook explores the current state of Britain's aerodrome heritage, which due to complacency, bureaucracy and severe oversight (not to mention a misguided media and ill-informed public) is in danger of being lost forever. This eBook is also the personal account of one man’s fight to save part of his own heritage, that shared (but neglected) by an unappreciative populace. It also details the emotional struggle of being powerless, knowing that you are right and there is nothing you can do to protect the cornerstone of your very character.
That said, the title of this eBook is more of a forewarning than a postscript. Much of former RAF Driffield still exists, but that will change. I hope that this eBook will make a difference before it is too late.
Phillip Rhodes ([email protected])
Kingston upon Hull – England
April 2008
