RAF BINBROOK

RAF Binbrook

The decision to build an RAF Base where Binbrook is right now was made in 1939 as part of an upgrading of Britain’s capability to wage war, however as the Germans ignored our ultimatum to leave Poland in the first days of September 1939 the nation found itself at war once more with Germany. Binbrook, and it could be argued most of Europe, wasn’t ready. Officially Binbrook began operations in July 1940 but in reality it took until mid to late September for Binbrook to be finished. The first Squadrons to call Binbrook home were the RAF 12 and 142 Squadrons. These units operated an aircraft called the Fairey Battle which by 1940 was woefully inadequete. In truth it did exactly what it was supposed to do, it was a single engined light bomber that could fly slow and stable enough for bombing runs to support ground units. What the designers didn’t factor in is the fact that people could, and most certainly did, shoot at the aircraft and because it went so slow and steady it was shot down in droves not just by Luftwaffe fighter pilots, but ground anti-aircraft guns too, with staggering losses the Fairey Battles were sent back to the UK as the German army swept all before them in their Blitzkrieg across Holland, Belgium and France. Whilst based at Binbrook however the deaths continued as the Battles were used for a short time as reconnaissance aircraft, flying over the North Sea searching for any German shipping. The first Binbrook based aircraft lost in action came from this time when flying near Mablethorpe a Fairey Battle was pounced on by a fighter and quickly shot down killing all three drew who were later buried at Binbrook, the irony is the attacking fighter was a Lincolnshire based Spitfire.

12 and 142 Squadrons used more southern airbases to attack German barges building up in ports just across the channel, barges which were planned for operation Seelowe (Sea Lion), the German invasion of Britain in the summer of 1940, they returned to Binbrook however due to high casualties and the airfield now being ready for the small aircraft. This soon changed however as the small three person Fairey Battle Squadrons exchanged their aircraft for the much larger two engined medium bomber, the Vickers Wellington MkII. Affectionately known as the “Wimpy” it was a completely different type and size of aircraft, it was also much heavier and despite being on the wolds it was soon found out that Binbrook was built in a saucered plain, meaning when it rained, it all drained into the airfield making the ground wet and soggy. There are reports of Wellington’s being stuck in mud and unable to move. Operations over the winter of 1940-41 were small scale, if the Wimpy had a full bomb load it simply coudn’t take off from such a marshy ground. In the April however things dried up enough for Binbrook’s bombers to take to the skies in ever increasing numbers and the bombing war against Germany and its conquered countries began in earnest. By November however a newer base at Waltham had been built, it had concrete runways meaning planes could take off with heavier loads much more safely. 142 Squadron moved to Waltham and in its place at Binbrook came the Lysander utility aircraft of 1 Group Target Towing Flight. The Lysander was a rugged single engined aircraft and it was its ability to take off from poor airfields that saw its later use by clandestine elements of the British Secret Service by landing in various fields in France, inserting agents to spy on the Germans and also carrying weapons, ammunition and supplies to the French Resistance.

Also in 1941 12 Squadron had been the first to use a new bomb, the 4000lb blast bomb, nicknamed “Cookie”. The plan was to use the “Cookie’s” power to blast parts of German buildings, especially roofs, open and then subsequent bombs (much smaller Incendiary Bombs) dropped by other Squadrons would set fire to the damaged buildings. It also helped that most German cities still had wooden buildings dating back hundreds of years, which is why so little of it is left today, especially in the bigger cities where thousands were killed and made homeless, the most notable being Dresden. 12 Squadron also tried dropping other experimental munitions, one named “Razzle” was thin strips of celluloid with phosphorus impregnated cotton wool, this was dropped on swathes of forests in Germany in the hope to burn the trees to the ground, denying Germany access to a vital resource. The plan however didn’t work but many men lost their lives trying various ways to beat the enemy.

German defences however improved over time and by the summer of 1942 it was clear that the Wimpy was inadequate and needed replacing, Twelve Aircraft from 12 Squadron were lost in July 1942 and in one night alone in August 1942 nine Wellingtons (five from 12 Squadron, four from 142 Squadron) were lost In attacks against the German industrial centres along the Ruhr valley and river. In September the monthly losses were 17 from both Squadrons. The flying, and the deaths only stopped in late 1942 when the Air Ministry decided to build concrete runways at Binbrook, three of them in total. 12 Squadron was moved to RAG Wickenby, 142 Squadron went to the Middle-East.

When work was completed the following spring new residents took over, originally due to be upgraded from Wellingtons to Halifaxes, the new Squadron instead was given Lancaster Bombers which they flew for the rest of the war. The Squadron was 460 RAAF, Royal Australian Air Force. Previously flying Wellington’s from RAF Breighton the Squadron quickly adapted to the Lancaster, however the locals didn’t adapt to the tall blond haired strangers who spoke strangely and on one occasion a child told his mother a German had spoken to her and she told her mother who tried to raise the alarm that the Germans had invaded. However 460 Squadron soon won over the locals and their remains a bond between them that still exists to this day. The Squadrons first operation was a mining flight to Dortmund during the Battle of the Ruhr, on this occasion two Lancasters were shot down. Two more Lancasters were destroyed in July 1943 when a Lancaster carrying incendiary bombs had just finished “Bombing up”, having bombs loaded onto her. All of a sudden the bombs dropped and caught alight (incendiaries burned, they didn’t explode) and soon the aircraft was ablaze with fuel burning uncontrollably, this caused the detonation of some smaller regular bombs which in turned set fire to two more Lancaster’s, the fires were controlled and extinguished by Wing Commander Martin and Flight Sergeant Kan, however one of the two damaged Lancaster’s never flew again. It was a miracle no one was killed however this true story has given rise to a myth about the airfield, but more on that later.

Just as 12 Squadron had done before them, 460 Squadron would test new devices and munitions. “Window” had a lot of faith put into it as a means of disrupting enemy defences by making it appear that several bomber formations were in the air at the same time by dropping thousands of thin strips of aluminium. German Radar operators couldn’t decipher wat was appearing on their instruments, and so the alerted their Fighter and Night-Fighter Squadrons to attack these formations which weren’t actually there at all. Thus the real bombers had fewer enemies to deal with. It should be noted here that the RAF dropped bombs at night and the USAAF (United States Army Air force) dropped theirs by day, in truth both forces suffered horrendous casualties so arguments for who was right are secondary to who won the war.

Soon 460 Squadron would fly its 1000th sortie and the aircrews and ground staff planned to celebrate in Cleethorpes’ Dance Hall on the Pier. No sooner had the first aircrew ordered their first drinks however the Squadron was called in for an emergency raid against Peenemunde, where German rockets were based to fire on London and most of South East England. Men were sent to bring back the party goers, they were aided by the local police and soon 24 Lancasters were roaring over the North Sea. Their bombs dropped, their mission over, the men decided there was still plenty of time to enjoy their work and so they hit Cleethorpes and the night of 18th August 1943 was a night not to forget. Certainly not forgotten by the then Mayor of Cleethorpes who wrote later to the Commanding Officer Wing Commander Edwards that Australians were no longer welcome in his town.

A new commander took over in late Autumn, in fact it was a conversion of Binbrook to becoming 12 Sector Base with responsibility over Waltham and Kelstern Airfields. Air Commodore Arthur Wray took charge, an elderly man who walked with the aid of a stick he was in fact a WWI veteran and whenever he could, despite not being allowed to, he would hitch a lift in a Lancaster during their raids over Europe. The Battle of the Ruhr had been bad for 460 Squadron, but it got worse when the Battle for Berlin came around. Over the winter of 1943-44 460 Squadron flew more missions and lsot more men than any other Squadron. 135 men lost their lives over the German capital, the worst mission being the night of 2nd-3rd December when five Lancaster’s were downed, 30 men died including some war correspondents who had gone along for the ride. After Berlin came raids on Nuremburg which were almost as deadly, then came a raid on the French town of Mailly-le-Camp in which the Squadron lost another five aircraft.

It was just after this that the Australian Prime Minister arrived for a visit to see how his countrymen were faring up, whilst there he had a look around a Lancaster Bomber, G-for-George, the aircraft had completed 90 missions, more than any other Lancaster of the Squadron. In fact throughout the war no other Lancaster made more than 90 sorties. In October 1944 it was flown to Australia to be kept on display and it resides at the Australian Was Memorial Museum in Canberra to this day. As well as the Prime Ministers visit there was also a new Squadron based at Binbrook, 1 Group Special Duties Flight was made of six Lancasters led by Squadron Leader Bill Breakspear, these aircraft were used to fly ahead of the main bombing force, they would drop flares onto the target area and then the following Lancasters would see where to drop their bombs (remember they dropped by night). It was a hazardous job, and after the results of the disastrous Maily-le-Camp raid tensions were high, a special visit by Air Chief Marshal Harris didn’t go well as Breakspear had warned that attacking Mailly-le-Camp would be a suicide mission as it was a full moonlit night with no cloud cover, he said his piece and stormed out of the office, Harris was furious and demanded he be brought back into the room where he asked “Don’t you salute Air Chief Marshals?” to which Breakspear replied “Not Stupid Ones, Sir” and then walked out again.

The war continued over 1944-45 winter and the casualties kept coming, by May the writing was on the wall and 460’s last mission was a daylight raid against Hitlers Mountain Headquarters, the Bavarian town of Berchtesgarden. 539 Lancasters from various Lincolnshire based Squadrons took part and only two were lost, inevitable one of these was from 460 Squadron, Pilot Officer Payne and his crew were the last casualties of Binbrook’s War. But not the last to die in service whilst stationed at RAF Binbrook. The Avro Lancaster was replaced by the Avro Lincoln, a short lived aircraft in the service history of this country. One aircraft in 1951 was being used to train air-gunners and as it made its manoeuvre to land at Binbrook one of the trainee gunners came out of the top turret and accidentally fell, his foot caught on some wire cables which controlled the ailerons (flaps on the wings used to control the aircraft), the pilot fought to re-gain control and he just about managed to do so before hitting the ground just short of the runway but he had come in far too fast, unable to control his rate of descent. The Lincoln broke into pieces and hit two other stationary Lincolns causing so much damage they had to be taken apart. The only casualty was the pilot, the instructor and trainees (5 together) all survived with various wounds.

Perhaps strangest of all deaths occurred in 1970. By then the slow heavy bombers had been long gone and newer jet engined aircraft were used. Their role being to intercept Soviet Russian Bombers coming over the North Sea during the Cold War. on the 8th September a 5 Squadron English Electric Lightning Interceptor was stood at the read for its pilot to leave his ready room and rush to his cockpit, the alarm sounded and out rushed Pilot captain William Schaffner, he was in fact an American exchange Pilot operating with the RAF, though he was well versed in flying the EE Lightning. He jumped into his cockpit and began taxiing to the runway, he was briefed that an unidentified radar contact had been travelling from Iceland, around the north of Scotland and now down the North Sea roughly parallel with the east coast of Britain. Schaffner took off and two more Lightning’s followed a few minutes behind him. He soon made contact and reported seeing bright lights in the sky, him losing controll of his aircraft and then nothing. He didn’t make any radio contact after that and never returned back to base. His aircraft was found the following year largely intact, strangely his ejector seat had failed to work and the canopy of his aircraft was closed too. Frm here there are two stories, the official Ministry of Defence report claims that there had been an Operation run by the RAF where a four engined Shackleton (similar to a Lancaster) had flown the course stated above to test the readiness of RAF bases, the Shackleton had been chased by American fighters in Iceland and two other RAF Bases had sent up Lightnings and Phantoms to intercept it, the aircraft fired flares as a recognition that it wasn’t a Russian long range strike bomber. These flares are what Schaffner reported as lights in the sky, it is thought Schaffner flew too low, hit the crest of a wave and crash landed on the sea, he opened his canopy and rolled out into the waves as the plane slowly sank.

The second story is that Colonel Schaffner was tracking an Alien craft of some kind, it was made up of lights, one of which disabled his Lightning and also transported him onto its vessel before moving away, leaving behind an empty Lightning. It should be known that Captain Schaffner was a good pilot with lots of hours flying in all kinds of weathers (he took off at 10:30pm in rain). He should also have known the lights were flares shot by a friendly aircraft but he didn’t report flares, he reported lights.

Captain Schaffner was the last casualty of airmen based at Binbrook, which in turn soon became redundant, part of the old accomodation blocks are now housing for a much larger new town of Brookenby, and lots of the old hangers and mechanics works are now industrial units used by a variety of owners. Much of the base has been destroyed, dispersal huts, watchtower etc all destroyed. Part of the old accomodation block is left deserted, abandoned and left to rot and ruin. The old Mess is now a Community Centre putting on shows and parties, part of it is a do-jo for Taekwondo whilst some other parts are merely used to store away all manner of things.

Now on to the ghosts of Binbrook. Everyone likes a good story, a story of evil revenge gone wrong and the wrong doer getting whats coming to them. Binbrook has a story just like that. Sergeant Sinclair was an angry man, angry because his girl had left him and for who? None other than the man who had injured his leg in the first place, a Pilot and an Officer. Sinclair was so mad he decided to sabotage the Pilots Lancaster by attaching a device to make it explode in mid-air killing him, and his crew. However when attaching this device it accidentally went off too soon and killed Sergeant Sinclair leaving his angry ghost to roam the airfield, his dodgy knee making him walk as if he has a club foot and hencie his nickname “Clubfoot”. Except, he doesn’t, he doesn’t even exist and never did. Out of the thousands of RAF and RAAF personnel, ground crews, engineers, mechanics and air crew, only one man with the name Sinclair served at RAF Binbrook, and he was a Navigator who flew three missions before having to bail out on his fourth mission and spent the rest of the conflict as a Prisoner of War. I do not know where the story of Sinclair and his name came from, the aforementioned story of the accident with the Lancaster dropping its bombs while still on the ground may have been the inspiration, no one died in that incident though. As for him having a dodgy leg, well that part of the fairy tale may come from someone else who served at Binbrook. Sergeant Air Gunner Roberts Christian “Bob” Dunstan, originally joined the Australian Army at the outbreak of WW2, he fought in North Africe but took a bullet to the knee which became rife with gangrene and he had to have one of his legs removed. Any other man might have said “well I’ve done my bit, suffered an horrendous wound, I’m going home” but we all know Aussies are a bit tougher than that, so he enlisted in the Royal Australian Airforce, figuring the plane does his walking for him and he could just sit there shooting his guns which is exactly what he did, in truth he was a rear gunner, operating four browning .50cal machine guns defending the Lancaster from enemy fighters creeping up behind them. Roberts Dunstan fought the war out and returned a hero back in Australia with a Distinguished Service Order medal, not only the youngest at the time to gain such an honour he was also the youngest at the time to be elected as a member of the Legislature of Victoria.

So is Binbrook Haunted? Oh yes, in my opinion it is very haunted. I visited recently and beforehand watched a number of Youtube videos of other people visiting, most sadly spent a lot of time asking for Sinclair, some only spent a short time and nothing paranormal seemed to happen when they asked out. However all reported hearing distant sounds, sounds which seemed to be in a room next door or a corridor along from where they were, I can vouch for this too after spending time there, it seemed something was happeneing, just not in the same room I was in. I am also convinced I heard footsteps on the stairs leading up to the Do-Jo area, this was heard by previous visitors but I hadn’t actually watched their video until afterwards as they only reveal their locations in the actual video, so when you search Youtube for RAF Binbrook their video doesn’t come up (Are You Haunted? Series 2, episode 10… I think). You could easily spend a full 24 hours at Binbrook and still not see all of it, the accommodation blocks are degrading fast ut are still safe enough to walk around, however you have to appreciate that part of the old base is in reality outside so there are lots of noises accountable for animals and locals too. The dressing room areas need a bit of tlc but they are very ethereal places where in one room you could hear a pin drop, next door you can hear the wind in the trees and most strange noises come from here. Apparently a ghost is said to be seen waving his arms around closer to where the runways would have been, erroneously named as Sinclair this person could be anyone, perhaps someone associated with the 1951 crashof the Avro Lincoln.