Today the sight and sound of RAF and USAF military aircraft circling over Brancaster is an everyday experience – and sometimes an irritant, as the roar of jet engines at occasionally low level can be hard on the ears. The planes come from RAF Marham in Norfolk, RAF Conningsby in Lincolnshire or RAF Lakenheath, a USAF base in Suffolk. The Wash area still provides an important range for testing ordnance for both air forces at RAF Holbeach at its western edge.
It may surprise many to know that military aircraft have been a regular sight over the village for over a hundred years. This has mainly been due to the presence of three airfields in the region: Sedgeford (ca 1915-1919), Docking (ca1940-1946) and Bircham Newton (ca1918-1962).
SEDGEFORD AIRFIELD
Sedgeford Airfield opened during 1915 as a base for the Royal Navy Air Service. It was originally concerned with the air defence of Great Britain, mainly from Zeppelin airships, as Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, had volunteered the RNAS for this role, since the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was overwhelmingly based in France. In 1916 the airfield was transferred to the RFC, who used it as a training ground for pilots going to fight on the Western Front in France. The airfield was closed in 1918/19 and reverted to farmland, although many of the airfield buildings remained. The site was used in the 1940s as a fake airfield to fool German bombers.
DOCKING AIRFIELD
This airfield is closest to Brancaster and opened in 1940 as a satellite RAF Coastal Command facility for Bircham Newton. Docking was a small grass airfield with basic accommodation for about 1000 personnel. It carried out a range of Coastal Command duties including reconnaissance, anti-shipping strikes and meteorological roles. The most important of these was the last, which – although much underrated – was crucial both to the bombing raids on Germany and the success of the D-Day invasion in 1944. A variety of aircraft undertook these duties, and would have been regular sights over Brancaster village in the 1940s. Perhaps the most common would have been the Avro Anson and the Lockheed Hudson, both crucial in Coastal Command operations. At the end of the war the roles Docking performed were transferred to RAF Langham , just south of Stiffkey in Norfolk. Today some buildings remain on the site, but this now being farmland, these are not accessible without permission from the farmer.
BIRCHAM NEWTON AIRFIELD
This was the largest and most important airfield in this area. It was built and opened in 1916 as a training base for pilots on the Western Front. It developed as a heavy bomber base in 1918 using the giant Handley Page bombers which were designed to bomb Germany; the war ended before this plan was enacted. During the 1920s the airfield continued as a bomber base and was expanded and developed in the 1930s; a number of buildings from this era survive today.
In 1936 Bircham Newton transferred to Coastal Command and also became a training base. Following this, the airfield became operational, with the Avro Anson and Lockheed Hudson being the standard aircraft used to carry out anti-shipping patrol duties, reconnaissance and air/sea rescue missions.
The airfield played an important role in the Second World War, with a wide range of aircraft operating from the base. At the end of the war there was little use for a grass airstrip and, after fulfilling a training function, the base was closed in 1962 to become the National Construction College. The airfield is well worth a visit, as many buildings still exist and there is a museum on site, open during the summer months.
The pictures show the commemorative tablets at Bircham Newton and Docking, and the Heritage Centre at Bircham Newton. (For information, the RAF came into being in 1918, formed from the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service.) If you would like to know more, do visit the online websites, which contain a great deal more information.
