Station 166 USAAF 9th airforce (Willingale)

B26 Marauders at Willingale

Have been following this thread with interest as my father-in-law is an Ongar boy, and has fond memories of Chipping Ongar from the day the Americans arrived to build it. As a 10 year old boy he spent many hours mixing with the airmen and their machines. His older sister married one of the airmen based there. He witnessed many crashes, and was often first on the scene, due to his well practiced pedal power! He is full of stories of sitting on the fence at the end of the runway watching fully laden B26’s take off, despite being in his 70’s. He is still very familiar with the area and the layout of the airfield. If you need any additional information, I’m sure his would be a good brain to pick!

p.s He was involved in the museum at Blake Hall for a short time, but this has now closed permanently, and the contents disposed of (much of it to Debach and various collectors).

Colin – I have the family of a B-26 pilot from Willingale coming to see me soon and they are keen to visit the place where their father flew. We are placing a memorial near here to his crew. Andy Saunders

You do not see a Spains Hall for ages and then two come along at once !

I think Pete has nailed it, Hornchurch. Two different Spains Halls!

Adrian

Adrian, The B.26 mentioned in Colin’s post (No 6) ain’t relevant.

Nor was it an A.20 from Weathersfield.

It was a 387th B.G. Willingale based machine, in N.M.F. or same with O/D top half.

An R.2800 spinner cap, predominantly silver, with 3 or 4 thin coloured (hand) painted bands (recall blue,red white).

I.I.R.C. heavily damaged in part, this exhibit was displayed on the right hand side of the upper gallery at Blake Hall circa ’93/’94.
(The massive photo board on the left)

Again, I.I.R.C. A/c may have clipped trees & made a shallow impact & therefore could have been cleared away by U.S.A.A.F recovery team, or engineer battalion at the time, but it came down not far from base.

Other (smaller) artefacts from same a/c were on display at the time, ’93/’94.

May have been a flight commanders A/c – as I’ve looked up 387th stuff last night & C/O’s don’t fit the bill.

Have E-mailed the museum/Hall for clarification but museum is shut till next summer…….weddings appear to be main source of revenue there nowadays – doubt somehow they’ll be of any use/help 😮 .

Just checked on Multimap and there is in fact another Spains Hall not far from the end of what was the Willingale runway, perhaps all Spains Halls were fated to be at the end of runways.

I wondered that as well, Pete – if there is a Marauder it may be near another Spains Hall, as Colin’s dig was much closer to London.

Pity we never met up for a beer – such is life!

Adrian

Would be interested in hearing more if you know it on this one – didn’t know any Marauders came down our way!

Adrian

Was this not the A-20 from Wethersfield which had one of the station cooks illegally on board. As it was fully fuelled and bombed up, I doubt whether any substantial remains were left of it. By coincidence, we were clearing out some cupboards on Sunday and I found my bag of fragments which we found on the site with a metal detector. These mainly consist of what I suspect are bomb casings including what appears to be the fusing ring.
One of my previous houses was only a few hundred yards from the site and I found a 0.5 cannon shell while digging the garden, I suspect that these things were whizzing all round Finchingfield after the crash.
Despite 60 years of intensive farming, the crater is still quite visible especially before the crops get going, the soil in the vicinity is quite dark as well.
Anyone have any details of the crew etc.

Incidentally AG, my 20 year association with Finchingfield will soon be ending, I’m hopefully off to Bocking in a few weeks.

How about our B.26 excavation in 1975, just got to the digs page on our website.

They used to display other B.26 artefacts relating to the 387th, including the R.2800 spinner from (one of) the Group commander’s a/c that ‘went in’ near Spains Hall (I.I.R.C).

Would be interested in hearing more if you know it on this one – didn’t know any Marauders came down our way!

Adrian

Thanks Denis, I had been to your site and passed the details on.

Thank you Hornchurch, I have the book somewhere but I have not long moved and its not surfaced yet !

Willingale Chipping Ongar

Can anyone help me with aerial photos, maps or drawings of this airfield?
Colin

May be ‘hauling coals to Newcastle’ here, but aside from Denis’ excellent site/photo’s……. why don’t you try the obvious for study purposes……

‘After The Battle – Airfields of the Ninth – Then & Now’ (Roger Freeman)

ISBN 0 900913 80 0.

If ya don’t fancy buying a copy, then hire one out from your local library.

When A.T.B. used to be based in Stratford, East London, I bought some of their ‘Airfield plans‘ for (what was then) my local W.W.II bases – I.I.R.C. Willingale was one of them, which explained the dispersal sites as well – in much greater detail than anything featured in the book.

Funny enough, I’d only mentioned about a week ago on this forum (in a thread on ‘Bircham Newton’/post No 4) regarding a few trips to Willingale & what a mate of mine had subsequently found there, on the Northern dispersal area’s edge, (as at the time we lived 12 miles away, near Passingford Bridge).

If you want a real treat – & assuming the massive photo display is still there (???) – then visit the upper gallery at Blake Hall – where they used to display a massive amount of original indivdual photo’s of the 387th’s B.26’s – the kind of actual pic’s that you WON’T see featured in publications anywhere (various a/c from 556th 557th 558th & 559th). 😎
They used to display other B.26 artefacts relating to the 387th, including the R.2800 spinner from (one of) the Group commander’s a/c that ‘went in’ near Spains Hall (I.I.R.C).

Some photo’s of Willingale AF are on my website. Google Earth also shows what is left, as does live.local.com from Microsoft.
http://local.live.com/