Main Gates RAF Lyneham 1950 - Memories from Mr Jim Newman

Main Gate RAF Lyneham 1950 .
Mr Jim Newman, whose father Mr Bert Newman was one of the early Station Warrant Officer's at RAF Lyneham, writes to us sharing his bygone memories. Bert arrived at Lyneham in January 1947 straight from India in one of the worst winters in many years, a fine introduction to the Wiltshire airbase from the tropical weather that he was acclimatised too. Jim arrived here with his family from RAF Filton during November 1948 to be accommodated in the newly built married quarters at Harrow Grove. Station Warrant Officer Bert Newman left the service in 1957, having spent all that time at Lyneham, creating some kind of record for a posting longevity.

Jim recalls the time when he used to spend hours watching Yorks, Hastings and other types doing circuits and bumps at RAF Lyneham and passes on his memories when the station main entrance used to be located the end of the 25 runway prior to the runway being extended for the larger aircraft.

Jim Newman has mentioned about the guardroom photo that we show at the bottom of this page, was not the guard room in use in the 1940's through 1950's, That Guardroom actually was occupied by the Air Ministry Police.... the chaps in the black uniforms looking like a regular civvie "Bobby", but with a "bus driver's hat" instead of the "flower pot".  Close behind that Air Ministry Police Guardroom is the end of what was known then as J1 Hangar.

The Guardroom, occupied by the Service Police, was right across the road and was a single story, cement block building, skim coated and painted white. It had a Canine Section at the rear, with a doorway opening into the main guardroom. It would be well recalled by those unfortunate enough to attend 'jankers parades' outside of that building and in full view of all passing!

The white building... and the original Main Gate, can be seen in the attached photo of the AOC's Guard of Honour. The AOC's car can just been seen just outside the gate. Yes! In those days they had the old fashioned Sentry Box, outside of the gate, to deter the German Army! I would imagine that the "Snoops" would have required the advancing Germans to sign in by 23:59 hrs.

(It can be deduced that the photographer was standing outside of the Guardroom with the pillars.) My photo is not dated, but I am will to guess that it would be 1949-1950. My father is the front man of the trio by the Sentry box. Station Headquarters is just off the photo to the right, since it was immediately next door. It, too, was of cement block construction but, as was usual, cement skim coated and left in the natural cement colour. It was H shape in plan form.

I traced off a Survey Map of Lyneham as it pretty much is today, the map being provided by a nephew in Chippenham! As you can see, I amended much of the map to represent RAF Lyneham as it was in the '40s-'50s until the new buildings were started and before the runway was extended (Shown dotted).

In those days, access to the main gate really commenced at Barrow End -marked point (A) - where the Chippenham road took a sharp "right hander" if you were travelling towards Dauntsey. Certainly not the sweeping curve that it is today. From (A) one took the original little road/sunken lane to Bradenstoke, with the MT Section hangar on your right and an orchard on your left. That orchard also bounded the Station Sports Field. That road no longer exists, but if you carefully look at the coloured aerial photograph to the left, about a third up on the left hand side, you can see the scarred in the grass from the original approach road. This former road was removed when the then runway 07/25, was lengthened (shown dotted), to the north side of the MT hangar.

At point (B) the road forked, and one took the sharp right turn towards Bradenstoke, and the other left which carried straight on to the Station Main Gate. The map shows the road to the gate and also the location of the gate, the original Service Police Guardroom and also the Station Head Quarters, in those days.

Only a few yards from Point (B) was the threshold of Runway 25 and it was there that Jim said he would sit for hours watching Yorks, Hastings and other types doing Circuits and Bumps. He once recognised Hawker's Test Pilot, Neville Duke (Air Speed record holder) landing in his restored 1930s Hawker Tomtit biplane.

When Jim first arrived at Lyneham, in November of 1948, he recalls there were some 200 Spitfires of late mark numbers, stored row upon row at the Bradenstoke side of the airfield and also down by the Calne Road, as he has indicated on the hand drawn map. All of these aircraft were "cocooned" in a silver plastic covering against weather and deterioration. Gradually those Spitfires were sold off to foreign governments or taken away to be used as targets in gunnery tests.

All of that grass area by the Calne road was just wide open grass... no buildings at all and it was from there that the RAF Gliding Club operated, landing over the Calne road. It also was also a great site for the aero-model enthusiasts and Jim and his friends used to spend quite a large portion of their spare time flying model aircraft. Jim also recalls his air experience flights, with the Air Training Corps, which were launched from this suitable grassed area in many of the Tiger Moth's, courtesy of 33 M.U. test pilots.

The hangars were numbered J1, J2, J3 and J4. The shortest hangar of the four was J4... and that was because, while it was being built, it was hit by a bomb from a German hit-and-run raider in the early 1940's. As can be seen today, they never bothered to repair and complete the hangar to be the same length as the others!

Other noticeable changes from today was the position of the Air Traffic Control Tower, marked CT, situated opposite J1/J2 Hangers. The photo to the left was replicated from British Airfield Buildings of the Second World War and the building is a very close representation to the Lyneham tower, except that Lyneham did not have a balcony. What it did have was a small, square wooden Visual Control Room (VCR) with large windows all round, built on top of the tower.

The tower was of cement block, rendered over with cement then white painted. It had a handrail around the top from which they hung large yellow boards on which was painted, in black, the number of the Duty Runway according to the wind direction. Presumably, this was for aircraft without radio. Lyneham had a flashing rotating beacon in the "old" days. At night it flashed out  "dot dash dot dot.......dot dash"  that were the letters LA in morse code and which was (still is?) the identifier for Lyneham, (with HV being Hullavington, etc.)  Those flashes could be seen from almost anywhere in the village and certainly as one was approaching Lyneham at night, by road, from any direction. The flashes could even be seen momentarily in the sky, down in Dauntsey Vale and as far as Christian Malford.

Located at the USAF Museum Dayton, Ohio. Outside, they have built a replica World War Two Control Tower and it is identical to Lyneham's old Control Tower. When Jim visited the museum he walked inside the replica tower, instantly knew where everything was! Jim repaints his memory "Enter the door off the tarmac and... immediately on your right... are the narrow stairs up to the second floor. Immediately on your left is the little Met Office, where my good friend and fellow modeller, 18 year old Apprentice Met. man John Bunting from Box, prepared his synopsis and briefing charts."

He continues "Just past the stairs, on the right again, was the Teleprinter Room. Up the stairs was the large office with the big windows. This contained what looked like radios, speakers and, later, also the big diagram board indicating the runway lighting. (When we first moved to Lyneham the runway was lit by paraffin flares that had to be laid along each side of the runway, every evening, by airmen in a small lorry called a Bantam. When the wind shifted, it was a scramble to pick 'em all up and re-lay them!) From that second floor, steps went up to the VCR on the roof."

"On the wall outside the building was screwed a large, vertical bronze protractor with a pivoting sight, much like a weather vane. About three hundred feet way, on the grass opposite the linking taxiway to the apron, was a small, vertically aimed spot light in a box-like housing. At night the spotlight would be illuminated while the Met Man sighted on the spot projected on to the cloud, then he took a reading from the protractor to obtain the cloud base altitude. So-o-o high tech in those days!"

Other memories include, when he first arrived at Lyneham the Control Tower was complimented by a black and white checkered, mobile, runway control caravan that stood alongside the threshold of the duty runway. On the roof of that caravan was a fairly large, glass enclosed "dog house" for viewing the world around. An unfortunate "bod" was banished to that caravan and armed with red and green signal lights, plus a large Very pistol and an ample supply of red and green signal flares. It obviously was very necessary that the "bod" did not suffer from colour blindness!!!"

It was his job to flash a green light, if the sky on the Approach was clear for the waiting aircraft to take off...and so on. If an aircraft was approaching without it's undercart down, the "bod" would dash out to fire a barrage of red flares at the offender! In later years, it was eventually deemed that the Air Traffic Control Officer in the Tower should earn his pay, by broadcasting all the necessary clearances or denials to aircraft....from the cozy confines of the Control Tower. The signals square that was alongside the tower, between the tower and the taxiway. had an illuminated Wind Tee that used to be sighted alongside the checkered runway caravan.

With thanks to Mr Jim Newman, Michigan  USA.