I was talking to one of the security guards on the site last year who was actually an MOD man.I was intrigued by this fact, as most security guards are from the usual big name company’s like Reliance or Securicor.
After I bluffed up his self importance, I asked a few questions about the base and its future, he let slip that the fuel storage tanks were full, and that it’s a proviso that if the USAF are in need of the base, all businesses must be able to move out in 48 hours.
Question: would fuel in the underground tanks deteriorate?. I know that all the large civilian airports and military bases are supplied by a pipeline network that runs all over the country, so would UH have been cut off from this or is it still connected.

The 48 hour bit concurs with neil p’s post at least!.

Whoaaaa!,
back up a second , the Beverley was scrapped?? what the heck happened here then?.

My contact could not remember any of the names , seems he joined 640 after May 44.

That neatly brings me to ask what the BBMF Lancaster is worth in todays money, priceless to our Country I know, but what sort of figure would it be insured for?.

The Chequers at Matching Green Essex.
Now an upmarket restruant but still retains a plethora of 391st Bomb Group (M) photos. These feature crews, aircraft, and the wartime plans of the airfield, many letters, commendations and other 391st related items are on all of the walls.

Mildenhall, but cant remember the year:
Red Arrows taxying in after their display, the last one deviates from the same track as the others, lines up and pops smoke through one end of the marquee belonging to a rival display team. He then rejoins the others as if nothing was untoward, lots of people running from the other end said marquee choking and spluttering.
Somebody else must remember this. 😀

I doubt if any pre-war or hostilities only airfields exist just as they were designed.
The most complete of all was, I think, Goxhill Lincolnshire . But this has seen extensive demolition in the past two years, Rivenhall near Chelmsford, owned by Marconi for many years was fairly intact until recently. now aggregate extraction has seen the runways and perimeter tracks lifted.
We have asked for a stay of execution for the parachute store at Hunsdon, it is due to be demolished in the new year, we are awaiting the word of the Landowners who are the BP pension fund, ‘Ropemakers’.

The same will eventually happen to the former RAF Hunsdon airfield in Hertfordshire. there are plans afoot to build 28,000 homes between Harlow and Hunsdon village, obliterating what is left of the airfield today.
We have formed the Hunsdon Airfield Memorial Group (see December Flypast, page 83) to build a suitable memorial on the old technical site to honour the personnel who served here during 1941-45, as it stands this will probably be the only reminder of what originally lay under all these new houses.

North Weald has not escaped either, I read of plans for 6,000 houses to be built there as well.
Another of John Prescott’s ideas of ‘affordable housing’ ? 😡
(Hunsdons remains can be seen on my website, link below)