Suffolk, England

John Cooper · Administrator

RE: The Royal Air Force

John Cooper · Administrator

Hawker Hurricane from The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight over Martlesham Heath today

John Cooper · Administrator

Wattisham Airfield celebrated its 70th anniversar on Saturday 11th July, it was a memorable day for Veterans and Families and friends with an Association to the airfield.

A fun packed day was to be had and Carolyn Grace[d] her own Mark IX Spitfire ML407 over the airfield like only she can do, a wonderful all round show put on by the organisers, thank you

John Cooper · Administrator

Today at the Lowesoft Air Show

John Cooper · Administrator

I have just finished reading 'Bawdsey, Birth of the Beam' by Gordon Kinsey [Terence Dalton Limited ISBN 0 86138 017 7] but in part of this book there is a whole section dedicated to RAF Sutton Heath/Woodbridge which was built and used exclusively for Allied Aircraft not being able to make their own bases during WWII

This makes for a fascinating read, in fact you could just imagine being there on one of those crash crews, some landed on a wing and a prayer, others didn't and perished when they ran out of fuel or their kites were so badly shot up that on an attempted landing they 'ground looped' and never made it

I quote from Gordon's book

............this was to be the first of 4115 aircraft to make emergency landings, 1100 due to technical trouble, 995 suffering battle damage, 820 short of fuel and 1200 due to bad weather, mainly fog at their home bases.

It has to be remembered that RAF Sutton Heath/Woodbridge only became operational on 15th November 1943 some 18 months before the end of hostilities

A recent photo of Gordon Kinsey taken at The Martlesham Heath Aviation Society's Open Day September 2009

MH Gordon kinsey DSC_0040-1.jpg