I wonder if anyone could answer an interesting situation which I came upon sometime during the above period. In the 2nd World War when air raids near my home in Surrey were bad, I spent a considerable time in Yeovil with relatives who lived about 500 yards from Westlands airfield. (Strangely they did’nt have very many air raids, despite Westlands plus a military presence locally). The airfields western end was on a hill, in a fairly rural area, with a track/narrow lane running along its side. Today this is a busy road, but then a tree covered area faced the airfield, this contained a couple of concrete dispersals. On one occasion whilst walking along the lane, I saw a black Lancaster bomber parked on one of the dispersals. At the time Westlands were producing the twin-engined ‘Whirlwind’ fighter/bomber, but it may have been in the early days of the unsuccessful ‘Whelkin’ development. The airfield, (as today), could have been a very awkward place to land a Lancaster, because it slopes down from this the highest point towards their Factory. Probably only anyone who knew Westlands that far back may have my answer, however can anyone tell me why this aircraft may have been on that airfield please?
By: stoneleigh - 27th November 2008 at 23:56
Re.Lancaster at Westlands Airfield 1940-1944.
Alan thanks, I have tried several channels for information, but there are few people around now who knew Yeovil in those dark days. It did occur to me it may have been a decoy, because it was well away from the Westland Works at the opposite end of the field. We did’nt seem to get many air raids, (hence the reason for my mother & myself being down there), and that part of Yeovil lay surrounded by hills on about three sides if I remember. At the time I was there, the biggest danger was from ‘hit and run’ raids. I believe the most serious raid around that era was when a shop in the main street was bombed, (possibly Woolworths), and a number of people were killed. Regards,Don.
By: battle_damaged - 25th November 2008 at 02:53
My contact has responded as follows:
Re the black Lanc I have been able to contact someone who was at Westlands before me in March 1945 but it did not ring a bell with him.
Landing a Lanc should not have been a problem up the not so steep slope from east to west into the prevailing wind.
But the Seafire landings up a short SE-NW slope across the then main entry road at going home times were worth seeing. This was a short steep strip joining the main east-west grass runway at the east end of the field
and called for a high rate of descent after clipping the trees on the main road by the Quicksilver Mail pub and a burst of power to to check the sink and go up the hill on to the airfield.
Sorry we can’t be of better help.
brgds
Alan
By: stoneleigh - 16th November 2008 at 00:36
Re. Westlands-Yeovil 1940-1944 period.
Thank you for your interest. At that time I had several relatives who worked for Westlands, as did so many people down there. Unfortunately now they are all deceased.
By: battle_damaged - 15th November 2008 at 09:42
Hallo Stoneleigh,
Welcome to the forum.
I shall forward a copy of your query to Tommy Thompson, who worked at Westlands immediately after the war, but may have an idea as to what it was you saw.
I’ll post any response.
brgds
Alan
[url]www.english-for-flyaways.de
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November 14, 2008 at 5:51 pm