A war memorial

The original 'scramble' bell at RAF Kirmington is maintained by the door of it's modern incarnation, Humberside Airport. It is a heartbreaking little memorial that tugs at my strings every time I fly from there. RAF Kirmington opened in March 1942 operating a training unit - No. 15 (Pilots) Advanced Flying School - pending the completion of the enormous runways. Once completed it was part of No. 1 Group of Bomber command, home to the Wellingtons of 150 squadron, and later 142 squadron, but is best known as the base of the Lancasters of 166 Squadron, and it is the battle honours of that squadron that are so touchingly described below the bell. For a close-up of the plaque see TA0910 : Memorial plaque In total, 51 Wellingtons and 127 Lancasters left RAF Kirmington and never returned. The plaque says that 922 lives were lost from this one airfield alone in those 3 years. Just to put that into perspective, in the recent Iraq war, which lasted over twice as long, the total UK fatalities were 179. I make a point of standing in front of this bell every time I use the airfield.

  © Copyright Bob Harvey and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence .

Submitted via Geograph

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