WW2 German Landing Grounds in the UK

Some discussion by Aussie academic Brett Holman on Waiting for Hitler: Voices from Britain on the Brink of Invasion by Midge Gillies

http://airminded.org/2008/01/26/the-day-of-the-parashot/

One of the aspects of Waiting for Hitler I appreciated was Gillies’ attention to rumours and panics as an index of the insecurity of the British people as they prepared for a possible German invasion. These are fascinating. For example, the slit trenches being dug in Hyde Park were said to be for mass burials in the aftermath of air raids, not protection from bombs. Troops practicing machine-gunning a buoy in a Cornish harbour turned into the accidental death of a boy by machine-gun fire the next day, and then the massacre of dozens of children on the beach the next, strafed by German aeroplanes.

Erskine Childers was executed by authorization of the newly formed Irish Free State, not the British. However, I agree ‘Riddle in the Sands’ is an excellent read.
Sorry for the thread drift.
Bill

I’ve only just come across this thread and read most of it. The earlier reference to Holkham beach and Brancaster is interesting and got me to thinking. Have none of you lot read ‘Riddle of the Sands’ , a spy story written about 1912 by Eskine Childers, an Irishman who later served with distinction in the RNAS and was later executed by the British in the 20’s for his participation in the Irish ‘Troubles’. He speculated a German invasion from the Friesian Islands into Norfolk. My favorite boyhood reading and re-read when I too became a ‘yachty’.

John

I was a very callow youth of 8 in 1940 but I well remember the paranoia at the time regarding all foreigners. There was rumoured to be a “fifth column” set up before the war to assist the Germans, etc., etc., etc. Any parachutists were to be regarded with great suspicion, my father coming back from the pub one night saw a parachute descending from an aircraft. He immediately suspected the worst and watched it closely and was surprised to be blown over by the blast of a landmine coming down about half a mile away. We went next morning to see the crater and the damage to surrounding houses in the small hamlet where it fell. I was most surprised at the depth of the crater and picked up a small piece of silk rope from it.
But we boys were told that the Germans were coming and that when they did we had to put sugar in the petrol tanks of their vehicles

There was a precedent!

Some many years ago as a callow youth,(1960’s) I came across a press story from about 1914 ( The Luton News?) regarding German agents, pre-war, having set up mooring and replenishment posts for Zeppelins in Eastern England. One such alleged site being in a railway cutting near Hitchin comes to mind.
Neema Senior gave me a severe lecture on “common bloody sense”, as to how one would realistically hide such a monster, or obtain and store the logistics and warned me about the sheer technical stupidity of the popular press.
It seems that nothing has changed much in that respect over the decades.

Having just driven past three of the barns in question, it is impossible to see how they could have been considered in this way. The Express article suggests they are in the shape of a swastika. Err, No!

My thoughts exactly – I read this through, and had forgotten just how much good fun it was.

Now, the other day the Times ran a piece from 100 years ago that day reporting on the first Zeppelin raid, and it described how a car on the ground had used its headlights to signal to the marauding airship…:dev2:

Adrian

I am so pleased this thread has been brought to the surface.
It is a pretty cool day & I needed a good laugh.
TKU vm

Regarding German invasion from the East Coast. My grandfather lived and worked in Peterborough during WW2. He was a tool maker at Peterbrotherhood Engineering, then engaged in manufacturing torpedo engines. Many other Peterborough engineering companies were supporting the war effort. Peterborough was also a major rail connection, with direct access to the East coast via the river Nene. However Peterborough was rarely bombed, and even then it was often a mistaken target. Grandfather, who was also Home Guard, often suggested that Peterborough and it transport links were “saved” from German bombing because if invasion were to happen Peterborough and other East Anglian towns, would have been taken first by aerial assult. But I expect many towns and cities have similar stories.

What I meant to say, but didn’t do it very well, was that the existence of the relevant document in PRO/TNA was not a myth. However, the subject matter is another thing entirely. I don’t believe it either but I still think it is a good story and worth checking in other records to discover the outcome, even if will be disappointing!

A little focus here folks!

We are still foundered on the FACT that a documented British concern does not prove a German action. (As I stated, without needing to see the document, right at the start.)

‘Airfields’ close together indicates local suspicion, fuelled by local knowledge, rather than a properly detected enemy activity.

Cheer up – if this “research” ever sees the light of day, it’ll be snapped up as the basis for yet another “factual” documentary by the media and the author will make a small fortune. It is the aviation equivalent of the Da Vinci Code.

I put the whole thing in the same class as “Chariots of the Gods”. It will become another harmless fantasy believed by people whose sense of reality is tinged by overactive imaginations and romantic dreams of being the next Galileo.

It is the easiest form of research. All you need to say is that there is no proof that it didn’t happen and those people whose logical processes are faulty will automatically assume that it did. Von Daniken and ever other new age “scholar” made a fortune out of the ability of people to believe anything, so why should this be any different.

We’ll all probably attend the book signing. I wonder what it will be called? “The Great Beet Field Conspiracy” – an expose of how Hitler’s vegetarianism nearly won the war for Germany.

It’s all a bit like cigars – sometimes a barn is a barn (S. Freud).

A little focus here folks!

We are still foundered on the FACT that a documented British concern does not prove a German action. (As I stated, without needing to see the document, right at the start.)

‘Airfields’ close together indicates local suspicion, fuelled by local knowledge, rather than a properly detected enemy activity.

As Andy Mac pointed out, there’s a lot of official paper in the TNA/PRO etc; all it proves is people were showing how busy they were. Much of it is rubbish. Data without interpretation is not history.

So it isn’t just a myth, although I doubt if they really were clandestine LGs. Touching that legal niceties were still being followed when the country was fighting for its life.

Er, it is just a myth. Just because the British found something to be suspicious of, does not mean there was any enemy involvement in it.

I’m still impressed anyone would believe red-painted barns would make a good mark to navigate on. There is still no suggestion of what (if real) they were for. Grouped together makes even less sense for almost all potential purposes.

And another thing entirely. A society that cannot adhere to its principles in times of intense stress is not a society worth defending. The ancient Greeks worked that one out, something all too easily discarded by hawks even today.

Got your book Atcham Tower, the website (or researcher) really did quote directly didn’t they? I presume that the researcher wasn’t you?

AR

Thanks for that Atcham Tower

Interesting that whoever transcribed your work missed one of the locations (at Buckenham). I’ve plotted them all on Google Earth but it does not reveal anything, other that four of them are very close together halfway between Norwich and Great Yarmouth.

Your hint about HO and Norfolk Constabulary files prompted me to look on the PRO’s website to see if there was anything else there that I should aim to look at when I go to the PRO and I found the following from the 11th May 1940, though possibly only co-incidence that it is one day after the report that you quote, anyway, from the online catalogue card for CAB 65/7/12…

1. Situation Reports – Removal of Holland’s gold; Dutch Shipping; Operations in Norway; Royal Marine Operations.
2. The Netherlands – Asylum for the ex-Kaiser.
3. British Expeditionary Force – Proposed move of the first armoured division to France.
4. Invasion of Great Britain – Arming of police; Internment of enemy aliens in the eastern counties.
5. The Netherlands – Protection of oil refineries at Aruba and Curaçoa.
6. Air Action – Anticipated bombing attacks on towns on the north and north-east coast.
7. Sweden – Position following invasion of the Low Countries.
8. Next Meeting.

CAB 65/7/23 Might also be interesting because it may well reflect the paranoia about the fifth column that was going on at the time, and it is only from a few days later, having said that nearly all the cabinet papers have an index item about Aliens, Internment or the Fifth Column after that.

Can’t find any Police records with the PRO, it would appear that the Norfolk Records Office have the only Police records (C/PO 1/17-59 – Police division records 1839-1965) that are available so a trip to Norwich might have to be in the offing as well!

AR

There are about 20 copies of my book listed on abebooks.com at reasonable prices. It was a spin-off from the Action Stations series. By coincidence, there is a little about the 5 mile runway in another thread.

I have now dug out my original notes made at PRO from AIR2/4557. My memory is a bit adrift in that I summarised the details in the book rather than used them verbatim. The proper version reads as follows:

22 May 1940 – (then a few words have been missed) ” …. sites consist of farms operated by East Anglia Real Property Co, the following eight places in Norfolk: Sporle, Buckenham, Baighton, Cantley, Halvergate, Paston, Guestwick and Southrepps. Some, if not all, have hedges removed and have the aspect of prepared landing grounds. Usually crops are sown earlier in district this year but these are still almost bare and rolled hard. The Chief Constable of Norfolk requires a Home Office Order to apprehend directors, managers and others connected with the company, of whom he has a list. All are Aliens, registered Dutch. The sites should be taken over simultaneously by the military with a view to obstruction, camouflaging barns and making a thorough search. …..
At 52 degrees 38′ N and 00 45’E there is a large area with hedges removed suitable to take off or land heavy aircraft from all directions. There are two barns painted red alongside and the owners are understood to be Aliens.”
(I then note that four others are then mentioned but I omitted to transcribe the details)

“The Officer Commanding Watton states that all have the aspect of being specially prepared landing grounds with easily recognisable features and barns painted red . In view of the number found , an immediate investigation of the sites and neighbouring population is essential.”

It might be worth checking the file, which is headed “Aerodromes in the UK – Obstruction and Blockage Policy Against Enemy Use” , for anything I didn’t include but the essence is certainly here. Unfortunately, there is no clue to the outcome. Home Office (HO) files and Norfolk Police Records may have more.

So it isn’t just a myth, although I doubt if they really were clandestine LGs. Touching that legal niceties were still being followed when the country was fighting for its life.

Thanks for that Atcham Tower. Is your book still available? Can you recall exactly what it says in Air 2/4557? I am planning a trip to the PRO to have a look at it sometime in the fairly near future.

AR

In defence of Mr Roadshow, I must confess that the quote in the Watton website was lifted from my book Britain’s Military Airfields 1939-45 published as long ago as 1989. I found the info in AIR2/4557 and presented it verbatim as an intriguing tale for further investigation. The basic story is therefore true even if the whole concept is extremely unlikely. I see no harm in discussing it and not falling out with one another!

If there is no evidence at all then I agree that in all probablility there is nothing to it. AR

Well that’s a flash of enlightenment – perhaps there is hope for you yet.

A common misunderstanding. Should there be no evidence either way, something probably did not happen; the likelihood is of a non-event. Things that happen leave evidence. If there is no evidence to date that these fields existed, apart from hearsay, then the probability is they didn’t. I have 999.999 chances of being right, you have a statistical zero. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

Agree totally with that JDK. If there is no evidence at all then I agree that in all probablility there is nothing to it.

Tried to order the ref from the PRO but it’s too fragile for them to scan and e-mail so I have asked for a quote for a copy which I will balance against a visit to Kew as there are some other things that I would like to look at. I’ll report back to this thread when I’ve read it, probably in a month or so – not going to be the quick turn round that I hoped for.

AR

On a related note:
There is a rather large abandoned complex just off Mulholland Hwy in Los Angeles that was some sort of pre WWII nazi farm/commune type place.