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RAF Binbrook
Airfield Code - EGXB / GSY Google Earth Co-ordinates: 53°26'46.56"N / 0°12'35.74"W Runways: 04/22 = 6000ft x 150 ft;
09/27 & 15/33 = 4200ft x 150 ft One of the last batch of pre-war expansion scheme airfields, Binbrook was built on Ash Hill in the Lincolnshire Wolds, north-west of the village of Binbrook on the B1203 road, seven miles from Market Rasen. Construction did not begin until the spring of 1938 and was not completed until late 1940. The usual arrangement of the later Type C hangars, five in number, facing the bombing circle was backed by the administration, technical and barrack sites in close proximity. The flying area and basic operational facilities were ready by June 1940, and during the following month No's.12 and 142 Squadrons (decimated during service in France), arrived with a few Fairey Battles. However, their services were needed in the south and both squadrons moved their Battles down to East church to engage in attacks on French and Low Countries ports where invasion shipping was mustered. Returning to Binbrook in September they continued to fly night sorties over the Low Countries. The Battle being already obsolescent, the arrival of Wellington's in November 1940 was welcomed but these bombers were in short supply due to the demands of other squadrons and it was the early spring before they first operated from Binbrook. During 1940 and 1941 a number of pan-shape aircraft hard standings were put down round the airfield. After a year at Binbrook No.142 Squadron was transferred to the new satellite airfield at RAF Waltham, officially named Grimsby. No.12's Wellington's pressed on with night bombing until September 1942 when the squadron was transferred to RAF Wickenby as Binbrook was scheduled to have hard runways put down under a £200,000 contract. To obtain the required lengths it was necessary to extend the airfield boundaries in some areas, which resulted in the main runway having a slope towards the valley at its 27 end. A perimeter track was also laid at this time and l9 loop hard standings for aircraft were added to the 18 pan types that survived the runway building program. With additional accommodation the station provided for a maximum of 2,298 male and 420 female personnel. In May 1943, No.460 Squadron, a Royal Australian Air Force unit, arrived from Brighton, which was being, transferred to 4 Group. Flying Lancaster's, but No.460 remained the sole operational unit based at Binbrook for the rest of the war. It was developed to maintain three full flights and frequently had a complement of three dozen Lancaster's. In consequence, the squadron is credited with delivering a higher bomb tonnage than any other in Bomber Command in the region of 24,000 Imperial tons. However, Binbrook also sustained the highest casualties and losses in 1 Group with some 130 Lancaster's lost on operations and another 30 written off in crashes. Additionally, on 3rd July 1943, two Lancaster's were destroyed and eight damaged on the airfield when incendiaries ignited during loading operations. In total 226 Bomber Command aircraft were lost on operations flying from this station, seven Battles, 79 Wellington's and 140 Lancaster's. No.460 Squadron was moved to East Kirk by in July 1945 and at the end of the summer No's.12 and 101 Squadrons moved from the utility buildings of their wartime bases to the permanent accommodation at Binbrook. The following year brought squadrons equipped with Lincoln's, namely No's. 9, 12 and 617 Squadrons. The Canberra units first appeared in the summer of 1952, and at one time there were five squadrons with the type based at the station, No's. 9, 101, 109, 139 and 617 Squadrons. Eventually all were moved or disbanded by the end of 1959, when Binbrook was then put on care and maintenance status. After the departure of No.IX and No.12 squadrons in 1959, Binbrook housed Gloster Javelin all-weather fighters belonging to No.64 Squadron, as well as the Central Fighter Establishment. No. 85 Squadron also moved to Binbrook with a mixture of Canberra's and Gloster Meteors in the target facilities role. The airfield then held appeal for Fighter Command which called for development work including the extension of the main runway by another 500 yards. Reopened for flying in June 1962 the first element of Fighter Command to take up station, was No.64 Squadron with Javelins, which stayed nearly three years. No.85 Squadron, with Meteors and Canberra's for air fighting development duties, were at Binbrook for nearly nine years. Then in October 1965 English Electric Lightning's arrived for a re-born No.5 Squadron, joined by a second squadron, No.11 Squadron, in 1972. The Lightning squadrons remained until May 1985 (they were the last Lightning's in service with the RAF), when the airbase was officially closed. The airfield was then surplus to RAF requirements and plans were made for its disposal. But before this occurred, Binbrook was selected for location filming of the Warner remake of "Memphis Belle". This took place in July 1989 with five B-17 Fortresses on hand, two of which had flown in from the United States and two from France. One of the latter suffered a take-off crash and was burnt out, fortunately without loss of life. For the film it was necessary to erect a wartime-type control tower which-was built by local labour in brick slightly in front of the post-war building. It was demolished after the filming was completed. The pan hard standings on the west side of the airfield were used to park the B-17s, beyond which a fake church tower was erected in a farmers field to simulate the opening sequence in William Wyler's original film. The larger part of the airfield was put up for sale late in 1989, although the hangars were retained for military storage until 1998 when they too were sold. Only the flying field and runway are now retained by the Ministry of Defense. A memorial to No.460 Squadron is to be seen in Binbrook village. Fact or Fiction On 8th September 1970, a single QRA Lightning F.6 departed from RAF Binbrook. The pilot was Captain William Schaffner of the US Air Force who was on his second tour of duty as an exchange pilot with the Royal Air Force. Schaffner was a well experienced fighter pilot with combat experience in Vietnam. The aircraft was XS894 of No.5 Squadron, whose call-sign on the night was Foxtrot 94. The jet tumbled into the North Sea and disappeared leaving a mystery. Very early the next morning a recovery effort was made but no trace of Captain Schaffner's plane could be seen. Over one month later the wreckage of the aircraft was found on the seabed by Royal Navy divers however there was no sign of Captain Schaffner. The events which ultimately led right to the crash of the fighter jet starts at a radar station called Saxa Vord. The cold war was at its height in 1970 and Russian aircraft made regular trips into the North Atlantic and along the British Coast to test the reaction of fighters. On the night of the crash a radar operator at Saxa Vord picked up the blip of an unknown aircraft over the North sea halfway between the Shetland's and the Alesund in Norway. The craft was monitored for several minutes at a speed of 630mph at 37,000ft in altitude and on a south-westerly heading. Saxa Vord noted that the unknown was turning through 30 degrees to head south at this point it increased its speed to 900mph and claimed to an altitude of 44,000ft. Radar operators at Saxa Vord sent a scramble message to the ORA flight at the nearest NATO airfield which was RAF Leuchers located on the east coast of Scotland. At Leuchers two Lightning intercept aircraft who were prepared for such a message scrambled and within minutes were in the air and heading out over the North sea after checking the position of their tanker, a Victor K.1A, the two fighters were guided north by Saxa Vord but it was then that radar operators on the Shetland Islands saw something on their radar screens which they thought to be impossible. The unknown they had been tracking at speeds and altitudes consistent with modern Russian warplanes, turned through 180 degrees on a north heading and within a couple of seconds vanished off their screens. Later they predicted that for this to be possible the unknowns speed must have been at an astonishing speed of 17,400mph. Within the hour, the mystery aircraft reappeared several times, approaching from the north and on each occasion the interceptors were sent north to check out the unknown aircraft showing up on radar and again the unknown turned around and vanished from radar screens. At this point two F-4 Phantoms from the US Air Force had been scrambled from an American base at Keflavik, Iceland. They had much more advanced radar than the British Lightning's however when they tried to get close enough to identify the mystery they found they were just as useless as the Lightning's. The alert has reached such an alarming level that the contact was being monitored at the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System at Fylingdales. The information they were collecting was then passed on to the North American Air Defence Command at Cheyenne Mountain and the US Detection and Tracking Centre in Colorado Springs. RAF staff at Fylingdales heard that the Strategic Air Command Headquarters at Omaha, Nebraska was ordering its B-52 bombers into the air. This order could have only come from the very highest level of command and what had started as a ordinary sighting of what was thought to be a Russian aircraft had now been passed on to the White House and President Nixon himself. At around 9:45pm a request was made from a high level within the North American Air Defence thought strike Command's at UK headquarters at High Wycombe, for RAF Binbrook to send Captain Schaffner to join the Lightning's to look for the mysterious craft. The NATO forces were at full alert because of the mysterious object picked up by radar over the North sea. The object had at first been a normal Russian aircraft out to test the reaction of Allied air forces but the strange craft had began to behave in a way that left Radar operators lost for answers. At approximately 10:06pm Captain Schaffner took off from Binbrook's main runway and shot off into the night sky. At this point the mystery now involved five lightning aircraft, two phantoms, three tankers, the president of the United States being informed and a Shackleton being scrambled over the North sea. The mysterious craft was now flying parallel to the East Coast 90 miles east of Whitby at 530mph and at an altitude of 6,100ft which was a most ideal course for an interception by a Binbrook Lightning. The following is an official transcript of the conversation between Captain Schaffner and the Radar station at Saxa Vord: Schaffner:I have visual contact, repeat visual contact. Over. Staxton:Can you identify aircraft type? Schaffner:Negative, nothing recognisable, no clear outlines. There is ... bluish light. Hell that's bright ... very bright. Staxton: Are your instruments functioning, 94? Check compass. Over. Schaffner: Affirmative, GCI (ground control). I'm alongside it now, maybe 600ft off my ... Jeeze, that's bright, it hurts my eyes to look at it for more than a few seconds. Staxton: How close are you now? Schaffner: About 400ft, he's still in my three o' clock. Hey wait ... there's something else. It's like a large soccer ball. It's like it's made of glass. Staxton: Is it part of the object or independent? Over. Schaffner: It ... no, it's separate from the main body ... the conical shape ... it's at the back end, the sharp end of the shape. It's like bobbing up and down and going from side to side slowly. It maybe the power source. There's no sign of ballistics. Staxton: Is there any sign of occupation? Over. That was last that was heard from Captain Schaffner. Aircraft & Squadron's
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