WWII airfield

[Guest]

Any info on Baldoon in Wigtownshire SW Scotland ? Maintenance airfield ?

Sorry mate i can find a baladoo can you give me a lat and long or if it was called by any other name

[Guest]

I was browsing through a cheap bookshop the other day, mostly cheap, recently out of print stuff but you never know what you may find.

Anyway picked up a nice book on the Me 109, another canal history, this time the Ouse Navigation and finally a book on WWII Yorkshire Airfields.

With this thread in mind I had to get it but what a treasure trove of interesting snippets of places I never even knew existed.

[Guest]

well im sure you will be pleased to know tomorrow i am getting pictures of the pill boxes, general area and runway/taxiways (if they still exist)

so they should be up about 20:30 tomorrow latest!!!

Richard

[Guest]

Baldoon was an estate with castle so might just have been local name. Nearest town is Wigtown a couple of miles away. Dont have co-ordinates sorry. Lots of "wooden" aircraft used it.

[wonwinglo]

Ah Richard ! the typically English wooden floor creaking under the weight of the books,loads of bulging shelves with out of print material,the owner just about visible through another heap of dusty tomes,you are another worthy follower of the 'Second hand bookshop' !! where would we be without them ?

Once on a wet and windswept Bridlington we stumbled across two shops of note,possibly the largest emporium of outsize underpants and vests in the world,and the bookshop with the most narrow passage between them ! just enough in fact to get down one row at a time,however should you meet another bookworm in the left hand circuit,some tricky backtracking was required.

Another victim of the world wide web,second hand bookshops are on the decline,those that exist are well worth patronising.

I have a problem which my good wife is most aware of,I am unable to go past such a shop without entering to delve into the treasures within.

Long live the old English/Sottish bookshop that exist from Lands End to John O Groats! they are one of our fast dwindling national treasures.

[Guest]

Strange coincidence...Wigtown is noted for its secondhand bookshops, has book-fairs with readings by authors etc. My local favourite is Leakeys in a big old church in Inverness. Got a nice home-cooking cafe too.

[wonwinglo]

Duncan,my parents met at Wigtown,I remember them speaking about Sunderlands in the area as well,is this the place that someone wiped the undercarriage off an Armstrong Whitworth Argosy on landing ? also a place that the Royal Aircraft Establishment used in recent years as well,are we talking about the very same place ?

[wonwinglo]

Just found this Duncan- Baldoon Airfield: WW2 airfield and air observer school; known as RAF Wigtown. During 1941-45, 67 lives were lost in 27 air crashes.

The other place was West Freugh which must have ben the RAE place.

[Guest]

West Freugh (pro Froo) was a seaplane base,closer to Stranraer. I had an ATC flight in a Sunderland from there. Still used when big Nato excercises are held,landing craft(LTC types) hovercraft and helis. Think RAE do/did some rocket research there. Dont know about the Argosy incident. Pretty hilly countryside with sea mists could have been causes of crashes in area. I was taken to Bladnoch for many years as a nipper for the annual hols by my parents during WW II. Fratenising with Italian POWs who worked on farms. Did I ever relate the tale of how my mother "captured a German spy" during this period? Your parents almost certainly danced to music played by the other "spy-catcher" Wally Hudson, the drummer in the local band. Bladnoch village is home of the furthest south Scotch whiskey distillery.

[Guest]

I think you need to elaborate on the "Capturing the German Spy" story!!

[Guest]

Interesting post, I've collected quite a few WW2 bits and pieces after searching an old airfield camp site where some of the RAF people were based. The camp was on the edge of an old airfield and after the war returned to agricultural use. I searched the whole site with a metal detector and recovered old cap badges, several forks (probably lost by airmen retuning from the cookhouse, quite a few pre decimal coins, coat buttons, and quite a lot of cartidge ends from very light pistols which were used to signal returning aircraft whether or not it was safe to land. I also found in the same field a cap badge from the First World War - it was called the Royal Flying Corps in those days and the badge has RFC on the front instead of the later RAF. The remainder of the airfield proper is now a nature reserve but there are still parts of the old runways in existence.

Ian

[Guest]

I think you need to elaborate on the "Capturing the German Spy" story!!

I wasnt sure if I`d told it here or not but it goes like this. My mother used to tell how about 1.30am, one night after attending a dance at Baldoon airfield her companion ( a Special Constable) stopped to pick up lone walker. He had a "strange accent" and a rucksack,looked as if he had been sleeping rough. In those days the fear of 5th columnists and parachuted spies was rife so the constable promptly drove the suspect to the local jail and locked him up. My mother was very proud of her bit for the war effort. Fast forward twenty odd years....warm summer day, a few of the workers at workshop where I was employed were basking quietly in the sun.The cabinet-maker broke the silence in his broad Western Isles tongue with "Did I effer tell you about the time I wass thrown in jile for bein a Cherman paaarashootist ?" My mouthfull of tea was sprayed everywhere as in an instant I KNEW what was coming next. "Aye, i wiss cumin off nicht duty wance , we wiz fitting radars an radio stuff in widden airyplanes , workin` aw oors. Anywi a wiss wakiin` hame wan Setterday nicht an this stupit polisman, wi a silly wumin wae him , thru` me in a wan room jile because ah widnae tell him aboot the top secret wurk we wis daein fur them at the `drome. Ah didnae get oot till the monday mornin`when they heard that ah wis missin` fae mah wurk an wass lookin fur me." Dear Mum went to her grave still thinking she had caught a spy. I never told the "spy" that I knew who had arrested him. The gentleman looked and spoke like Duncan McRae for those that can remember black and white films . The original version of Para Handy and similar that required the token Highlander or Lewis Man.

[wonwinglo]

A message from John.V.Nicholls should solve the mystery airfield poser-

I think I can close this one - you only had to ask... The two pictures can be confusing. The upper that shows Mathams Wood which was within the WW2 Sawbridgeworth airfield. The white "track" was the perimeter track. It continues across the road to Shingles Hall where a number of WW2 buildings still stand. The lower picture is mainly just outside the

airfield perimeter. For more information I recommend "Where the Lysanders were" by Paul Doyle. A new memorial was unveiled for Sawbridgeworth recently.

Hope that helps...

JV

Thanks John for the excellent explanation.

And now for Baldoon,Wigtown,lets see what we can come up with for this historic place.

[Guest]

Excellent Duncan. Many thanks for relating the tale.

One of those lovely stories we keep locked away to share with friends every now and then!

[Guest]

Wigtown

Here is wigtown

[ATTACH]14463.IPB[/ATTACH]