History
The site was first used during the First World War and received the largest British bomber of the time, the Handley Page V/1500. They would have carried out bombing missions against Berlin but the Armistice was arranged before any missions were actually flown.
The airfield was equipped with one aircraft repair shed and three double bay general service sheds, although these had been demolished by 1937. It had two Belfast hangars, three C Type hangars, three Bellman hangars, and ten Blister hangars.
It operated through the Second World War as part of No. 16 Group RAF as part of Coastal Command. No. 206 Squadron RAF was one of the squadrons being based there, on maritime patrol duties. Two satellite airfields, RAF Docking and RAF Langham were opened to accommodate units.
In 1965 the airfield was used for evaluation trials of the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel V/STOL aircraft.
Read more about this topic: RAF Bircham Newton
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)
“The only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)