NEWS – RAF Worksop Website wants memories of base

70 years ago this summer the Air Ministry began the construction of a new bomber base in north Nottinghamshire, called RAF Worksop.  A new website has been set up to commemorate the life and times of this base and to remember the personnel and aircraft that served there.

 

The airfield opened in March 1943 as an outstation to RAF Finningley to look after the 18 (Polish) Operational Training Unit until they left in 1945.  After this the base was used by various small units before the base was used by the 6^th Royal Tank Regiment in 1948.  The Korean war and the need to train aircrews on fighters saved the airbase and 211 Advanced Flying School moved in during 1952 with Gloster Meteors.  The base was also home to 616 RAuxAF squadron until 1957.  211 AFS was absorbed into 4 Flight Training School in 1956 gaining De Havilland Vampires. 

 

David Cook who created the website said “There seems to have been very little written about the airbase and people are constantly asking questions on what happened there, I thought I’d try to compile its history in memorial for all those that served in the RAF.” He also added that “It’s a shame there’s no memorial to the airbase – if you walk past it now you wouldn’t even realise one existed, a lot of foreign aircrews trained at the base including those from Poland, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa”.

 

He also wants peoples written accounts of their time at Worksop “I'm trying to get hold of ex-pupils, trainers and staff who were on the base in order to compile a complete history and to help people share their reminisces”.

 

The base eventually closed in 1960 and saw several uses until it reverted to arable land during the early 21^st century.

 

If you have any information please e-mail them at rafworksop@ymail.com follow them on Twitter at @RAFWorksop. The website is at http://www.rafworksop.btck.co.uk/

 

Website - RAF Worksop Website requires information (Worksop)

There is currently a website under construction in memory of all those that served at RAF Worksop in Nottinghamshire.

If anyone has any information, stories or memories that they don't mid going on the internet could they e-mail Dave Cook at RAFWorksop@ymail.com

The website will be released on February 6th 2012

News - Tribute to fliers of lost airport (Doncaster)

A ‘LONG overdue’ memorial to the men and women who served at Doncaster’s original airport has been unveiled.

The monument to honour all the aviators who flew from Doncaster Municipal Airport in peacetime and RAF Doncaster in the war, has been placed on the island at Lakeside, near the site of the original control tower.

It was created and donated by Bawtry memorial mason Stephen Davis and commissioned by South Yorkshire Air Museum, which is housed in one of the old hangars.

Stephen and his team erected the wedge-shaped memorial, depicting the outline of the old airfield engraved on a grey granite plinth.

It was officially unveiled by Doncaster Mayor Peter Davies and retired Air Vice Marshal Alan Johnson after Ian Kingsnorth from the museum welcomed the gathering.

Words of remembrance were read by 98-year-old Eric Clarke, from Carcroft, who was a Flight Lieutenant in the Second World War.

Among the distinguished guests who aid wreaths was Lord Lieutenant of South Yorkshire David Moody and Lord Scarbrough.

The memorial salutes all those civilian and military airmen and women and ground crews based at what was Doncaster’s original airport and RAF Doncaster from 1934 until after the war.

It reverted to a civilian aerodrome until it closed in 1992.

During the war the airport, which had a grass runway, housed a Ministry of Aircraft Production factory where Westland Lysander reconnaissance planes were built. Vickers Wellington bombers were repaired there.

Carl Spedding, spokesman for the museum, said: “This memorial is long overdue.

“It is being erected as tangible evidence of Doncaster’s long association in British aviation history.

“The Aircraft Museum has preserved the history of Doncaster’s aviation in the form of the last buildings of the old wartime airfield, full of exciting aircraft.”

The 616 (South Yorkshire) Squadron Royal Auxiliary Air Force Squadron was formed in Doncaster in 1938 but left in 1939 to fight in the Battle of Britain with the Spitfire.

From the beginning of World War Two the airfield became RAF Doncaster housing 271 Squadron, later affectionately christened ‘Doncaster’s Own’ by the local townsfolk.

In the 1970s the pilots’ clubhouse under the control tower became a popular night spot.

From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/local/tribute_to_fliers_of_lost_airport_1_3920743