[jim]

Originally Posted by STARMAN 352ND

After seeing these....It's going to be on my list to vist......I have got to see this place and the pictures are great.
Thanks for showing us these pictures....How far is the "Bodney today" the bunks that are newer as you called it from the old Tower ?

JP

10 minutes walk will get from the huts to the tower. Come out of the gate and turn left then take second track on the right after the water tower.
The control tower is easy to miss even on foot because it is hidden behind a line of trees and cannot be seen from the road.

[STARMAN 352ND]

It would of been nice if someone would buy it and make it a museum someday....Have part of the runway that is there with a few P-51's too.
There is so much that can be done to that place and to fix it up back to the way it was during the war.
It would be a tribute to the veterans of The 487th Fighter Squadron "Blue Nose Bastard of Bodney" for all their hard work and sacrifice they did during World War II.
JP

[jim]

Originally Posted by STARMAN 352ND

It would of been nice if someone would buy it and make it a museum someday....Have part of the runway that is there with a few P-51's too.
There is so much that can be done to that place and to fix it up back to the way it was during the war.
It would be a tribute to the veterans of The 487th Fighter Squadron "Blue Nose Bastard of Bodney" for all their hard work and sacrifice they did during World War II.
JP

I fully agree with you JP, that place is special and it would be sad and I think very disrespectful if it was lost to some developer or other.

How quickly we forget the debt we owe.

[no4mkit]

Excellent pics Jim. Thanks for posting those for all of us who wish we could visit!

[JETFAN]

Sadly, probably 90 percent of all WW2 airfields, irrespective of their wartime history, have been allowed to deteriorate to Bodney's condition or worse. Many of the pre-WW2 bases which had the permanent hangers and accomodations seem to have survived; the hangers are used to store agricultural products, runways have become tracks for Army learner drivers to practice on etc.Those that were built during the war have all ended up like Bodney and their remnants can be seen in most of the Eastern Counties of England today.A friend of mine once owned a farm at Holme on Spalding Moor, in Yorkshire when the RAF commandeered the land to build a Base for Halifaxes. After the war, he got it back and could farm between the runways but had to leave the buildings intact. Eventually, Blackburn Aircraft leased the airfield and hangers to do all the flight testing of the Buccaneer as the Brough runway was too short. When that program ended, he got the field back. He ripped up all the runways and sold the materials to the local county for road construction. He kept the hangers and raised pigs in them. In later years, one of the buildings acquired a red/white checkerboard color scheme and was used as a target by the RAF and USAF. No weapons were used. On visits, I could sit in the farmhouse and watch A-10s, Tornadoes, Phantoms etc make mock attacks on the building at very low altitudes. RAF training a/c, like the Jet Provost, used it as a "fix" during low-level navigation practice.Both RAF Driffield and Leconfield were turned over to the Army and used as driving school locations. Leconfield is still used by the Army today. Lissett, home of Friday the 13th, has just a couple of small out buildings remaining. Another friend has one of the larger buildings as a workshop for his business. There is no sign of the hangers or runways etc.A friend of mine decided to land at every former Lancaster base in a light aircraft. He would contact the land-owner for prior permission and at times had to resort to microlights as only small bits of a taxiway might be left and used as a farm road. Over several years, he decided to try for every WW2 base and managed to locate and land at over 700 airfields. His last one was on a military reservation, so not accessible. He stopped at a civil airport for a cuppa. In the cafe, he met the crew of an Army Lynx helicopter, chatted about what he was doing and the upshot was they gave him a lift onto the airfield he wanted!