les freathy Posted June 22, 2009 Share Posted June 22, 2009 Down in our part of the UK it is well known that there were many fighter bases during WW2 that were not only used as front line airfields but also acted officially and unofficially for that matter as emergency landing fields. During the intense bombing campaign from 1943 many shot up aircraft that made it back to the UK could not go the extra distance to the bomber bases in the east midlands and made both successful and sadly often unsuccessful atemps to get the aircraft down saftley. My local fighter station was based at Hawkinge near Folkestone now sadly almost dissapeared under houses but if you are ever down this way make sure you visit the museum on the old site but i digress this WW2 field was designed and built for fighters which could take of and land on reasonably short runways and being close to the channel would have been a first choice for some of the returning damaged bombers. The two attached photos show the problems of lack of a long runway when this B17 crash landed overshot and ground to a halt at the bun along Gibralter Lane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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