Nuneaton
NUNEATON: Military aerodrome (Aka LINDLEY)
Note: This picture (2018) was obtained from Google Earth ©
The MIRA site occupies pretty much the entire WW2 airfield. Note the dispersals at the top NW corner.
Military users: WW2: RAF Bomber Command 93 Group
And; RAF Transport Command 4 & 44 Groups
1513 BAT Flt (Airspeed Oxfords)
18 Polish OTU [Operational Training Unit] (but did they actually use the aerodrome?)
105 OTU later 1381 TCU
USAAF 250th Field Artillery Battalion with two Piper L-4H Grasshoppers (Or so it seems)
Location: N of A5, NNW of Higham on the Hill village, 4nm NNE of Nuneaton
Period of operation: 1943 to 1945 (some records say 1946)
Runways: Grass runways originally it seems.
Later: 13/31 1280x46 hard 06/24 1829x46 hard
18/36 1280x46 hard
NOTES: It is well worth mentioning here that the construction of military aerodromes in WW2 was nowhere near as smooth a procedure as might be imagined today and NUNEATON gives a few valuable clues as to what went on. The idea we are now often presented with that the British people were 100% behind the war effort regardless of cost and inconvenience is quite frankly a load of rubbish.
A large proportion of the population were far from happy about the war and quite rightly so I suppose. Lets face it, they had seen the consequences of World War One, ("The War to End All Wars"), which had ended just twenty years earlier .
However, many people in the locality put up a huge amount of resistence and voiced their complaints loudly and made many serious protests about a whole range of issues especially regarding aircraft noise nuisance. They were not much bothered about the threat from the Nazi regime, they just didn't want the noise of bombers operating in the vicinity. And that was often how it was in those days, they could not see the 'bigger picture'.
OBJECTIONS GALORE
The construction of this aerodrome lasted from spring 1941 to February 1943 and overcoming various local objections played a large part in this. A local farmer raised severe objections to having his home and farm buildings demolished and as a result a runway was re-aligned.
The Bishop of Leicester was very upset, and voiced severe objections. On the approach to the new runway the 120ft spire of St. Margaret’s church presented a hazard. Negotiations with the Bishop of Leicester took six months but in the end 60ft was removed with the stones being numbered and stored for rebuilding as soon as practicable after the war was over and a red light installed on the remaining part of the spire.
SOME MORE INFORMATION
In April 2022 I was kindly contacted by Mr Mick Furniss. He tells us; "The farmer who objected to having his farmhouse and buildings demolished was actually my grandfather - Mr Isaac Richard Furniss. My grandfather told me that someone from the Air Ministry came out to see him and agreed to cant the main runway by 1 degree to avoid demolishing the farmhouse and buildings at Higham Fields Farm."
"The church spire was stored in The Blacksmith's Yard at Stoke Golding and I have seen a Hinckley Times photograph of this from the time."
THE 'NIMBY' PROBLEM
This is a great example of what we now call the NIMBY problem. The Church of England were extremely keen to ‘get-in-on-the-act’ in WW2 providing thousands of vicars to bless air crews going off to fight the Nazi regime and kill tens of thousands of German civilians.
But when it came to temporarily removing a spire, (at no cost to themselves), to enable air-crews to go about this business with huge rates ‘attrition’ (in other words often embarking on near suicidal missions), the so called learned clergy got ‘cold feet’ and objected! Thank heavens we now no longer rely solely on the Church of England for moral guidance!
OPERATIONS
In 1943/44 105 OTU were using Vickers Wellington ‘bombers’ here to train pilots for Transport Command. As they would have no need of gun turrets etc they were removed and faired in.
They later operated Douglas C-47 Dakotas alongside the Wellingtons briefly. From his autobiography, when Capt Archie Jackson was posted here in early 1944 it was Wellingtons only. After being seconded from the RAF to BOAC to fly flying boats, mostly around western Africa, he volunteered to fly over “the Hump” in RAF Dakotas from India to China and he was accepted. The RAF knew exactly what he had to do so he was posted to PRESTWICK to learn flying the Radio Range, a system similar to the `Standard Beam Approach in Airspeed Oxfords.
WHAT WAS THIS ALL ABOUT?
He was then sent to RAF LINDLEY (NUNEATON) to fly the Wellington. From his autobiography, (highly recommended reading), I think these excerpts are of interest: “Early in 1944 I completed about eighty hours flying in Wellingtons practising single-engine flying, landing without flaps and other exercises - but by no stretch of imagination was it a transport aircraft, nor did our exercises bear much relation to what we would expect to do in India and Burma where there were no Radio Ranges nor airfields equipped with the Standard Beam Approach.”
SCEPTICAL?
The more I learn as the years progress, the more I realise that, even by 1944, the sheer level of often utter incompetence within the upper echelons of the RAF, (the management sector), almost defies belief. Some people in recent years have tried to estimate their mental capabilities and have come to the conclusion that many would have struggled to attain even ‘Moron’ status in a modern IQ test! This applied very much to WW1 and it obviously didn’t improve by WW2.
There is nothing ‘new’ about this and it applied to the Army as well from which, mostly, the RFC and RAF evolved. Indeed, it seems to have been an established practise within the upper echelons of British society that if a ‘duff’ child came along, they were invariably put into the Army, albeit at officer rank. The Navy, the ‘Senior Service’ was another matter altogether and even up to WW2 really was, demanding of the most capable people to lead and set an example.
EASY TO UNDERSTAND?
Understanding this seems pretty easy to comprehend? The skills needed to be a ships officer are obviously far more demanding than simply mindlessly marching a battalion into war? A fact so sadly borne out in WW1, in the thoughtless slaughter so often carried out in the trenches.
IN MORE MODERN TIMES
In 1947 MIRA (the Motor Industry Research Association) moved in and they are still here today although they call the site LINDLEY. Much of the original airfield layout still exists and the control tower VCR (Visual Control Room) now sits atop the control tower at DUXFORD where it was installed in 1989.
Danny Worthington
This comment was written on: 2020-01-14 19:13:31I’m trying to do research on RAF lindley/Nuneaton. Any information would be great
Dick Flute
This comment was written on: 2020-01-14 20:10:51Hi Danny, What you see is all I have. But I shall leave this posted for others who may hopefully be able to contribute. Best regards, Dick
Johnny smith
This comment was written on: 2020-11-10 19:03:21My dad,Tom smith was a boiler man at raf lindley after being invalided out of the army in about 1942, my grandma used to tell me who lived in Witherley that when the bombers came back from a mission they will take the top branches off the trees on the opposite side of the road to her house.
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