Ludford Magna
LUDFORD MAGNA: Military aerodrome
Note: This image was obtained from Google Earth (2018).
Although nothing remains of the runways, this is an excellent example of how the airfield profile still remains, defined by the perimeter track. Farmers especially have for many decades found WW2 perimeter tracks to be most useful.
Military users: WW2: RAF Bomber Command 1 Group
101 Sqdn (Avro Lancasters)
Location: SE of Ludford Magna village, 5nm E of Market Rasen
Period of operation: 1943 to 1963
Runways: WW2: 01/19 1829x46 hard 10/28 1280x46 hard
14/32 1280x46 hard
NOTES: Known by aircrews in WW2 as ‘Mudford Magna’.
According to Kevin Wilson in his most excellent book Bomber Boys, and roughly when this airfield became operational, Bomber Command’s nominal front-line strength on the 3rd of June 1943 stood at 784 heavy bombers with another 148 on standby. (Therefore roughly 26 squadrons I suppose?). Up from 608 heavy bombers on the 4th of March. Short Stirlings were being phased out and replaced with Avro Lancasters, but the Handley Page Halifax was still a major component.
THE 'BATTLE OF THE RUHR'
Here is something else Mr Wilson mentions: (I chose this airfield at random because 101 Squadron was involved in the ‘Battle of the Ruhr’ campaign). “In those nineteen weeks Bomber Command made a total of 18,506 sorties and 872 aircraft failed to return. Another 2,126 were damaged, some so seriously that they never flew again. There was a less than one-in-three chance that any crew beginning a tour with the Essen raid of 5 March, recognised as the start of the battle, was still alive by the time the last operation in the campaign was mounted.”
NOT JUST BOMBS AND BULLETS
There can now be no doubt that the 'technology, intelligence and insurrection war' was equally if not arguably more important in WW2 than just guns, bombs and bullets. One such measure was ABC which Kevin Wilson describes on page 380 of Bomber Boys. On the next page he describes the circumstances in which the 5000th RAF bomber was lost in WW2. This book is highly recommended reading.
There can now be little doubt that by the end of the war the way the bomber campaign had been managed and waged throughout was a considerable embarrassment in the high circles of both the RAF and the government Ministries involved. Which is why they tried really quite hard to both ignore and suppress the entire episode by and large. The invariably high-handed and callous disregard towards the lives of aircrew smacks very much of the fate WW1 infantry suffered in trench warfare.
But I suppose, hindsight is a wonderful commodity where everything seems so clear and easy to explain later on. I would like to think that one aspect is beyond doubt? Those young men of Bomber Command saw only two options despite the horror of operations? Firstly it was mostly their task to wage the war on Germany on behalf of their entire Country. Secondly that being over-run by the Nazi regime was not an acceptable option at any price, including sacrificing their lives.
ON A HAPPIER NOTE
On a more convivial note my description of where this airfield was situated is not entirely correct it seems. The ‘flying area’ only was SE of the village. To quote from ‘Bomber Boys’ once again, here is the the account by Mrs Barbara Guthrie, nee Brant, who was eleven years old at the time, “The village was in the middle of the air base. It was all around. The buildings of the base were on one side of the road and the airfield on the other side.” And to think, there was I many years ago chuffed to bits tofind a farm in the middle of GLATTON WW2 airfield, now PETERBOROUGH (CONINGTON).
It is a little recorded aspect of WW2 but one I now find interesting, to realise the paramount priority airfield building assumed especially from 1940 to 1943. In several cases I can think of, even ‘A’ roads were being cut off completely as part of the airfield was built across them!
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