Kimbolton
KIMBOLTON: Military aerodrome later private airfield (also known as HUNTINGDON and STOW LONGA)
Military users: 8th USAAF 41st Bombardment Wing
379th Bomb Group
524, 525, 526 & 527 Sqdns (Boeing B.17 Fortress)
Operator: 1990/2001: Mr R C Convine
Location: E of B660, 1nm W of Grafham Water, 7nm W of Huntingdon
Period of operation: Military: 1941 to 1946 Civil: 2000 certainly
Runways: WW2: 15/33 1829x46 hard 03/21 1280x46 hard
09/27 1289x46 hard
1990: 14/32 400x18 grass
2000: 14/32 400x18 grass 10/28 600x12 grass
A MICHAEL T HOLDER GALLERY
We have Mike Holder, a great friend of this 'Guide', to thank for delving into what info and pics etc are available, (in 2023), and presenting us with the following:
There is one aspect of WW2 very rarely explained. When the USAAF belatedly arrived here, they were given the prime sites in England to operate from. Much better weather being the most advantageous.
The RAF bomber squadrons being banished, as it were, further north mostly to Lincolnshire and south Yorkshire. Plus of course the RAF were mostly bombing at night, so they very often came home, battle weary, to be confronted with low cloud and of course - fog. Haven't found so far. a comparison of figures relating to casualties in combat over enemy territory and casualties when coming back home over England.
The excerpt is from Castles in the Air by Martin W Bowman.
Almost as soon as they arrived the USAAF were very keen to establish friendly relationships with the local community at each base, which in effect had been built in itself as a self-contained township.
And having a degree of "luxury" not shared with most RAF aerodromes. These bases being provided with ample supplies being shipped in from the USA. But, it appears, the USAAF servicemen were very generous in providing treats, especially to children. Some of these USAAF bases were only operational for a year or so.
The local area and area views are from my Google Earth © derived database.
As for the visit by King George IV, perhaps we can only wonder about how the royal family were feeling and reacting to this turn of events, ending up in WW2, being basically of German heritage for a long time. They soon realised that they quickly needed to try and hide this connection with Germany, renaming themselves as the House of Windsor.
NOTES: Another big USAAF base with 2894 personnel on station in late 1944.
AN ODD FACT?
History throws up some odd statistics especially where war is concerned. At GRAFTON UNDERWOOD in NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, not too far away and a very similar airfield operating at about the same strength with four squadrons of B.17s they recorded 1,579 killed in combat . Here they recorded 353 lives lost. Presumably there must be a reason - but what is it? Surely just the “luck of the draw” wasn’t at work here?
A STORY
Typical of so many similar stories on the 16th December 1944 the B-17 Flying Fortress 44-8275 took off on a mission which was soon cancelled. However, this aircraft caught fire and the aircraft Captain, (B-17s had two pilots unlike most RAF bombers), Lieutenant Richard Ahern ordered the rest of the crew to bail out. Staying at the controls he managed to crash, (but killing himself), away from a village. The villagers then expressed their gratitude to the C.O. of the 379th Bomb Group.
SOMETHING TO BE TOLD
In 1944 the USAAF supremo of the 8th Air Force, General Spaatz, had realised that if you destroy the fuel supply, nothing military can operate. The bulk of the senior people in the RAF and American forces couldn't appreciate this. How damned stupid can you be? But they were, to some extent, at the higher levels of command, virtually morons by todays standards of measuring intelligence, according to some studies made. I had not realised for most of my life, that 'Moron' is a place in the table of measuring intelligence - and not the lowest.
'Bomber' Harris, Commander in Chief of Bomber Command, most certainly could not understand this? Or at least seemed reluctant to adopt the ideas of General Spaatz? But of course, he was not in command of the overall war strategy. This being determined by the Chiefs of Staff and the government up to Cabinet level, Churchill I suppose having the final say.
Indeed, the lack of understanding of the basic principles of how to win WW2 is, with hindsight it has to be said of course, quite astonishing. Without much doubt, if the bombing campaign envisaged by Spaatz on oil production facilities had been carried out, the war would have ended several months if not a year earlier.
According to Max Hastings in his most excellent book, Bomber Command, "For two years of war, the USAAF had been groping for the throat of the German war machine, and now at last Spaatz believed that they had found it: the synthetic-oil system. In 1943, Germany's synthetic-oil plants produced 6.2 million tons of petroleum products from coal. In addition to the 2 million tons imported from Hungary and Rumania."
"Many of the targets were within range of 15th Air Force in Italy, if not of 8th Air Force in England, but hitherto the Allies had devoted barely 1 per cent of their entire wartime bombing effort to oil targets." Did they really not realise that their vehicles and aircraft depended entirely on petroleum products to keep operating? Clearly not!
SPOTTERS NOTES
In 1997 it appears that the Cessna 175B Skylark G-ARRG (?), Jodel D.120 Paris-Nice G-AZGA, Cessna F.177RG Cardinal G-BCUW and the Piel CP301A G-BDDZ were based here.
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