CENTRAL BEDFORDSHIRE PRE-SUBMISSION LOCAL PLAN 2018 OBJECTION BY P. CARTER TO Section 7.9 : AIRFIELD

The reason for this submission The former RAF Tempsford Airfield is included within the Section 7.9 (and Appendix 7) proposed New Town. In additional to objections to that overall proposal there is a fundamental objection to the loss of Tempsford Airfield for historic reasons.

A brief history of the Airfield This airfield, and its role in World War 2, is unique. Not only were the operations carried out here by the Special Operations Executive highly secret, the airfield itself was secret. It was, allegedly the airfield that Hitler was determined to find and destroy, but he failed on both counts. The work of the SOE and its heroic agents is legendary, and Tempsford was its primary and most important, operational base. The overall form of the airfield remains intact. Whilst many of the wartime buildings have been removed, those remaining, and the mostly intact runway and peripheral roadway pattern, firmly identify the airfield and its contribution to the creation of the rural landscape of this part of the Ivel valley. Aside from one listed building and one small ancient monument, the airfield has no special protection. It is a non-designated heritage asset. Central Bedfordshire Council does not consider this status is sufficient to prevent its development as a new settlement. (CBC Consultation Draft Local Plan 2017, CBC Pre-Submission Draft Local Plan 2018) The threat of development is real and immediate. Such a development would destroy, for all time, this unique heritage asset.

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Current Recognition as a Heritage Asset The former RAF Tempsford WW2 Airfield is a non-designated Heritage asset. Within its curtilage is a scheduled monument, Biggin Wood moated enclosure, (List Entry Number: 1012451) and a Listed Building, GIBRALTAR FARM BARN (List Entry Number: 1390750) The Airfield is recorded by NRHE under its Grid Reference (Monument Number: TL 15 SE 59) and accompanied by a misleadingly sterile description: “A World War Two military airfield, opened in 1941. Plans to construct an aifield were made already in 1936 but it was 1940 before building commenced. The airfield consisted of three concrete runways with Type T2 and B1 aircraft hangars. It was Assigned to 3 Group Bomber Command and used temporarily by 110 Operational Training Unit. Its other secret role from 1942 was undertaked by 138 and 161 Squadrons as one of the main airfields supporting covert resistance against the Axis powers in occupied Europe, particularly in France, Norway and Poland. These duties included picking up or dropping agents (such as the heroic ) and providing supplies for resistance movements. After the war the airfield was reduced to Care and Maintnance status. The site reverted to agricultural use in 1963.” The Historic Environment Record for Bedfordshire also lists the site and provides some limited further detail: TEMPSFORD AIRFIELD : HER No 9269 : Type of Record : Monument. The existence of the airfield has also given rise to many outlying associated monuments, ranging from sites of anti-aircraft batteries, radio station, accommodation buildings and references to nearby country houses used as billets. Less formally, the unique fame of the airfield has spawned a wealth of historical books and online histories, tributes and rolls of honour. (See Bibliography)

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A Brief summary of the wartime role. Nestled in the Ivel valley at the foot of the Greensand Ridge, RAF Tempsford is a former Royal Air Force station famed for being the most secret airfield in the Second World War.

From 1942 Tempsford airfield was the Royal Air Force’s main operational base for its most secret operations into Nazi-Occupied Europe. It was the home of the RAF’s elite special duties squadrons, No 138 and No 161. From here their aircraft flew thousands of moonlight sorties, delivering secret agents to a hazardous and uncertain fate and parachuting supplies to sustain Resistance movements throughout the Continent.

Tempsford was at the front line of Britain’s secret war. It witnessed some of the greatest feats of RAF aviation and was the point of departure for hundreds of brave men and women on secret missions to gather intelligence and to sustain Resistance at the very heart of Hitler’s Europe. The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and the Special Operations Executive (SOE) were the primary clandestine organisations that the Special Duties squadrons serviced. The RAF aircrew and their passengers paid a high price. Many failed to return but their deeds have not been forgotten.

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This airfield holds a special place in the history of the Royal Air Force. It also serves as a potent symbol of an enduring bond established in the dark days of the Second World War when Great Britain and its allies fought alongside each other to achieve the liberation of Europe from tyranny and Nazi occupation.

Central Bedfordshire Council proposes to obliterate this Historic Airfield by building a new settlement on it. It recognises the Airfield is a non-designated heritage asset, but believes its unique history will be adequately perpetuated by the use of street names and the retention of one listed building.

To the west of the airfield, beyond the London-Edinburgh main line railway lies the village of Tempsford, intersected by the A1 Great North Road – both the road and railway providing strategic access and supply routes on the doorstep. To the east, sitting on top of the range of hills known as the Greensand Ridge, the small village of Everton looks down upon the airfield. The small market town of Sandy lies a short distance to the south, and the larger town of St. Neots is not far to the north. All of these communities played a role in providing civilian staff, lodgings and hospitality to the many hundreds of personnel based there. Construction of the airfield was completed in December 1940, and it was assigned to 3 Group Royal Air Force Bomber Command. The design followed the typical pattern for military airfields with concrete runways. The basic integrity of the airfield remains to this day, as can be seen from aerial views. It is a good example of WW2 Airfield design, although it is not unique or special in this respect. It was closed in 1946, and sold as farmland in 1962, with the benefit of grants to improve the soil.

It is hoped that this short paper provides the Inspector with some insight into the importance of the site, and why it should be protected.

Historical references and a bibliography follw.

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EVENING STANDARD. July 14th, 1945.

“TEMPSFORD. (BEDS.) KEPT ONE OF THE WAR’S BIGGEST SECRETS.FLY BY NIGHTS BEAT THE GESTAPO. From JAMES STUART, Tempsford.

Tempsford is just a hamlet in rural Bedfordshire. Its inhabitants mostly work on the land, and none of them knew it but Tempsford held one of the big secrets of the war. They knew that down a little side road marked ‘This road is closed to the Public’ there was an R.A.F. Station. In the Anchor and the Wheatsheaf they saw the R.A.F. men but that was all. They had no idea of the job that they were engaged on. Names of the pilots and crews that did that job cannot yet be revealed except for one, the late Group- Captain Pickard, D.S.O. and two bars, D.F.C., the famous ‘Target for tonight’ pilot. When he left Bomber Command, Pickard commanded one of the two ‘Special Mission’ Squadrons which the R.A.F. created as a link with the under-ground movement in all occupied countries. He was an expert flyer. The R.A.F. began this branch of its work immediately after the collapse of France with one flight of a Bomber Squadron of No. 3 Group. By March 1942 Tempsford was in operation, and finally two special squadrons were being employed. From Tempsford they delivered arms, ammunition, radio sets, food and other supplies to all underground fighters from the Arctic Circle of Northern Norway to the Mediterranean shores of Southern France. From big bombers, Whitleys first, and then Stirlings and Halifaxes, they dropped their parachute containers. Every kind of supply went down from skis and sleighs for the Norwegians to the bicycles and bicycle tyres made in England, but carefully camouflaged with French names, to the resisters of Western Europe.

For three years the airfield, built over what had been a large area of marsh, was the air centre of the resistance movement of all Europe. Night after night the villagers saw airplanes go off and probably heard them returning in the small hours. But they never saw the people, men and women in civilian clothes, who were driven down the prohibited road from the airfield, the men and women who had been brought to England from Occupied France under the very noses of the Wehrmacht and the Gestapo. 5

NO SECRET DEVICES. There were no secret devices to help this passenger service to operate. The R.A.F. airplanes simply landed in France, picked up their passengers and flew off again to Tempsford. On other trips they dropped Czech, Polish and Dutch agents in their own countries. About 700 resistance leaders made the trip. Sometimes the R.A.F. brought back documents, maps and messages. Not all the story can be told even now. There is still need for secrecy about how the great organisation was built up. The romantic and hazardous side of the job was flying the old unarmed Lysanders and bigger Hudsons to the secret landing grounds in France. One of the airmen that took part in the adventure said today:- “We had to have decent fields, so we brought back men of the resistance movement to teach them the sort of places to select and what to do to help us to land, then we took them back again. Others we brought back were trained in England as saboteurs and dropped in France again.

One French agent was caught by the Gestapo, who broke his feet in torturing him. He managed to escape from them and we picked him up and brought him back to England. He could not of course make a parachute landing again , but he insisted on returning to carry on with his work in France. So we took him over. He was a brave man.

Usually when a Lysander – only a three-seater airplane, at one time used for Army Co-operation work – went out to pick up passengers, the pilot flew unaided, with a map on his knees, doing his own nagivation, looking in the dark for a small field in France.” There was no room for a navigator when passengers had to be brought back. Often the Gestapo arrived just as the airplane lifted its wheels off the ground. “There were many hairbreadth escapes like that,” I was told. A pilot was just about to land one night when he saw that behind each torch-holder stood a German with a revolver. The pilot realised what was happening, revved up his engine and flew off. He was wounded in the neck but flew back safely. “When one of our Hudsons got bogged down in landing, he rounded up 200 people, 12 oxen and 6 horses, and worked for two and a half hours before the airplane could leave – with a number of important people (political) on board.” How secret it all was may be judged by all this – said to me by another of the pilots:- “Even when high- ranking officers who were not in the know asked us about the work that we were doing, we had to lie like old Harry. It was court martial for anyone who breathed a word about the job. Not even the mechanics knew about the passenger flights.”

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

RAF Tempsford - A Place in History The following non-exclusive references relate to the airfield and its people, and have been selected as more factual accounts rather than dramatisations. Many of the books have more than one edition or format and ISBN references are given for identification only.

Publications

Ward, C. 138 Squadron Publisher: Mention the War Ltd; 1 edition (2017) ISBN 978-1-911255-20-8

McCairns, J A. Lysander Pilot: Secret Operations with 161 Squadron Publisher: (Amazon Kindle)

Clark, F. Agents by Moonlight: The Secret History of RAF Tempsford during the Second World War. Publisher: Stroud: Tempus Publishing Ltd., 1999.ISBN-10: 075241691X ISBN-13: 978-0752416915

Clark, F. Peter Five. Publisher Bromley:Independent Books, 1993.

Griffiths, F. Winged Hours. Publisher: London: William Kimber, 1981. ISBN 0-7183-0128-5

O'Connor, B. Tempsford Airfield: Now the story can be told… 1998. ISBN 1-902810-03-1

Verity, H., We Landed By Moonlight (revised edition). Publisher : Manchester: Crecy Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-947554-75-0.

Body, R. Taking the Wings of the Morning. The full story of F/Lt J W Menzies and Hudson FK790 Publisher: lulu.com 2013 . ISBN-10: 1291558721 : ISBN-13: 978-1291558722

Body, R. Runways to Freedom Publisher : lulu.com 2017 ISBN-10: 1326098403 : ISBN-13: 978-1326098407

Jackson, R. The Secret Squadrons Publisher: Robson Books Ltd; First Edition 1983) ISBN-10: 086051207X : ISBN-13: 978-0860512073

Middlebrook, M. & Everitt, C. Bomber Command War Diaries Publisher : Pen and Sword Aviation; Reprint edition (2 April 2014) ISBN-10: 1783463600 : ISBN-13: 978-1783463602 (also in e-book format)

Bunker. S Spy Capital of Britain: Bedfordshire's Secret War 1939-1945 Publisher: Bedford Chronicles Press (27 April 2007) ISBN-10: 0906020034 ; ISBN-13: 978-0906020036

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McCall, G. Flight Most Secret Publisher: HarperCollins Distribution Services; First Edition edition (April 1981) ISBN-10: 0718300386 : ISBN-13: 978-0718300388

Merrick, K A. Flights of the Forgotten Publisher: Weidenfeld Military; 1st Edition edition (28 Sept. 1989) ISBN-10: 1854090291 :ISBN-13: 978-1854090294

Helm, S A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE Publisher : Abacus; New Ed edition (1 Jun. 2006) ISBN-10: 0349119368 : ISBN-13: 978-0349119366

Marks, L. Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War 1941-45 Publisher: Sutton; UK ed. edition (1 Oct. 2007) ISBN-10: 0750948353 ISBN-13: 978-0750948357 (also in e-book and talking book formats)

Ottaway, S. Violette Szabo: The Life That I Have Publisher: Thistle Publishing (13 Aug. 2014) ISBN-10: 1910198420 : ISBN-13: 978-1910198421

Tania Szabó Young, Brave and Beautiful: The Missions of Special Operations Executive Agent Lieutenant Violette Szabó, George Cross, Croix de Guerre avec Étoile de Bronze Publisher: The History Press; 01 edition (6 July 2015) ISBN-10: 0750962097 :ISBN-13: 978-0750962094

Francis, P, Flagg, R and Crisp, G. Nine Thousand Miles of Concrete (a review of WW2 temporary airfields) Publisher: Historic England. 2016

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Commercial Films:

School for Danger / Now the Story can be Told. 1946 68 minutes Produced by RAF Film Unit for the Central Office of Information. Originally produced as a public information film and released after the war School For Danger, also entitled Now It Can Be Told, is a dramatized documentary on Great Britain's Special Operations Executive or SOE. (Valuable footage of RAF Tempsford commencing at 0:11:36) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlZ15_KoKQc&t=742s DVD – Imperial War Museum Official Collection

Carve her Name with Pride. 1958 1Hr 59mins. The film, directed by Lewis Gilbert, is based on the true story of Special Operations Executive agent Violette Szabo, GC, who was captured and executed while serving in Nazi-occupied France. She is the most renowned agent to have passed through RAF Tempsford, and has a memorial in the barn. DVD – Available from online sources.

Online Bibliography (links valid as at August 2017) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Tempsford Invaluable Wikipedia entry containing factual descriptions and many further references and links. http://www.tempsford-squadrons.info/

Website Dedicated to 138 & 161 Special Duties Squadrons, the Squadrons that operated from Tempsford Airfield (Gibraltar Farm.) http://tempsford.20m.com/ Website dedicated to RAF Tempsford 1941-45 http://www.161squadron.org/ Website dedicated to personnel from RAF Tempsford and 161 Squadron, which was based there. Contains remembrance pages. http://www.harringtonmuseum.org.uk/tempsford-airfield/ A page relating to Tempsford from the Harrington Aviation Museum, Northamptonshire. http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Bedfordshire/TempsfordAircrewLost1942.html In remembrance of aircrew from 138 and 161 Squadrons who gave their lives in the war. https://www.raf.mod.uk/history/138squadron.cfm RAF page relating to wartime 138 squadron https://www.raf.mod.uk/history/bombercommandno161squadron.cfm RAF page relating to wartime 161 squadron http://www.tempsfordmemorial.co.uk Page related to the special memorial in Tempsford Village http://www.tempsfordmuseum.co.uk/

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The Tempsford Museum, in the Village Hall, contains a section dedicated to RAF Tempsford and a number of interesting artefacts.

Online Video (a selection from many)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTWhTuqjJqU 7:28 minutes. Tempsford Story - video detailing some history of the secret WW II Tempsford Airbase. Author Grady 7777777 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRz2uBDWxmw 1:37 minutes (Tempsford Airfield SOE Barn - including aerial views of barn and airfield) Author Paul Bleakley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ezQASfCRg 13:59 minutes. A visit to Tempsford Airfield 2002. Brief views of remaining WW2 buildings, the runways and barn interior. Author DebenDave https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAhpjbMb0MY 5:29 minutes A musical tribute based on the famous poem, to the heroes that left from Gibraltar Barn. Author Blacktop Deluxe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT2ouXEOb9w 5:31 minutes. Secret War , SOE operations in Bedfordshire – shows many of the surviving buildings at Tempsford airfield. Author Charles Stuart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvdKAN6cx9o 5:32 minutes. RAF Tempsford 1939-45 - May 2014 museum displays and visit to the barn) Author Chris Drage

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