1985 RAF Main Gates, Strike Command

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Hallmark April 1985. RAF Main Gates Strike Command. by Miles Marshal

‘The Camp' as we have always known it, has been an important factor in our village Life for more than forty years and has been a source of considerable local employment during all those years.

This site for a wartime control centre for our bomber force, such as it then was, suggested itself to a member of the Air Ministry staff, Wing Commander Allan Oakeshott, later killed in operations over the Baltic, who was a son of Major Oakeshott of Walters Ash.

Knowing the area well, Allan Oakeshott was struck by its remoteness and the excellent cover provided by the beechwoods. It is a remarkable fact that the Camp was singularly. free from air attack thoughout the war although the Germans must have known of its existence despite its ambiguous official title of ‘Southdown’.

It would seem to have attracted more outside notice ‘in the last three years than at any time in its history! For that we have to thank the mischief – making media and the ‘peace’ workers, who. have stirred up so much controversy over what they have called 'the bunker’.

Although its conception as a new home for Bomber Command, then based at Uxbridge, was probably as early as 1936,°it was not until 3rd May 1940 that the conveyance was finally signed for the major part of the land. Work had already started but the very protracted negotiations necessitated an interim move by the Command Headquarters to Ritchings Park, Langley, near Iver in August 1939, just before the declaration of war.

Four parcels of land were originally purchased: eleven and a half acres of Speen Farm from Mrs. Ishbel Ridgley (nee MacDonald); the land for Site 3 from the Educational Trust Foundation, a registered charity which sprang from an endowment for the provision of schools by the late Mrs. Emma Grace, a notable local landowner and benefactor; the Land for Site 4 which now contains the Printing Section and the Sports Field which was bought in September 1941 from the Executors of the Will of Mr. C.W. Raffety of Walters Ash Farm; and the main parcel of some ninety acres of land which was bought under compulsory purchase order from the Bradenham Estate.

This last purchase also involved trustees, for the widow of Squire Tempest (formerly

Graves) of Bradenham Manor held a life tenancy of the Estate under a Trust.

Such however was old Mrs. Tempest's influence that the Air Ministry was obliged to agree to her stipulation that no buildings or overhead cables should obtrude – into the view from the Manor House of the Queen's Ride (or Gap), a clearing cut through the beechwoods for a visit of Queen Elizabeth I. Unhappily, one chimney did breach this agreement. It was soon spotted by the eagle eye of Mrs. Tempest and it had to be reduced to roof level to comply.

The contract for the new headquarters was placed with the civil engineers John Laing & Son-with a resident architect, Mr. Chalmers, appointed by the Air Ministry. A considerable force of men was engaged including a large proportion of imported Irish labourers, as local workmen have cause to remember, for if heavy rain or hard frost ever held up the work, it was the locals who were stood off, not the Irish. But there was much ancilliary work created locally too, for instance over six million local multi-coloured, sand—faced, hand-made bricks were needed in the construction of the above-ground administrative buildings. These were built to pre-war traditional R.A.F. standards whilst the Officers Mess was built to resemble a country manor-house standing in its own grounds.

Whilst the Irish labourers were in hutted accommodation, many Irish foremen paid for their own lodgings and are still. remembered with respect by their former landladies.

Throughout the construction work, immense trouble was taken to preserve the beech trees which were such a vital and irreplaceable part of the camouflage. The now famous but then highly secret Operations Block was of course built deep underground and needed 8,800 cubic yards of special waterproof concrete, all of which, although mechanically mixed, was transported in wheeibarrows up planks and tipped into the shuttering by hand.

It is the impact of the Camp on the district that concerns. us here and that, for better or worse, has been immense. A glance at any pre-war Ordnance Survey map clearly indicates the quiet isolation of these villages only reached by narrow tortuous byeways with virtually no through traffic. To cope with the military traffic, first the road through Naphill and Walters Ash was widened and straightened leaving the old curves in the lane as laybyes and later New Road was cut across the Grymsdyke meadows, although this was not opened to traffic until after the war. Then there was the commercial development to meet the needs of an increased population; the filling station and the shops, even a bank, at Walters Ash which grew into a busy village as the Officers' and Airmens' quarters went up and more houses for civilian staff. Lacey Green expanded too but perhaps more so since the war when many retired Air Force personnel have been absorbed into the community and have contributed in no small way to the life of the village.

Bomber Command, needless to say, was ringed round with Anti-Aircraft guns in the surrounding fields, introducing another element of the Armed Forces into the community. Later there were to be the Italian prisioners of war who worked at the Camp and on the neighbouring farms, some of whom settled in the district after the war to farm on their own account. In 1945 they were joined by German prisioners who. were housed in huts in Tempest Wood, remaining until 1947

In September 1945, *Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris relinquished his command to Air Marshal Sir Norman Bottomly. The Command's wartime task was done. Many. Airmen and women returned to civilian life, Educational Vocational Training was introduced and the transition to a peacetime role gathered pace.

St. Mark's Church was built as a permanent replacement of the disused huts that from time to time had served as the Station Church. The Station’ continued to grow and in April 1968 Bomber and Fighter Commands were merged as Strike Command — to incorporate, a year later, both Signals and Coastal Commands.

In January 1969 the Headquarters Unit became known as Royal Air Force Station, High Wycombe. A new badge was designed for the Unit with the motto 'Non Sibi’ (not for ourselves) and in October of the same year a Spode commemorative plate bearing the new badge was presented to the late Councillor Harry Church on behalf of the Wycombe Rural District Council of which he was then the Chairman. Incidentally, Mr. Church had worked at Bomber Command himself for many years as a maintenance engineer for the Ministry of Works.

April 1940 was to see Bomber Command Headquarters, under the Camp Commandant Sqdn. Ldr. J.F. Mehigan, settling into its new home, whilst Air Marshal Charles Portal (to be Knighted in August 1940) took over as Commander in Chief. In October 1940 he handed over to Air Marshal Sir Richard Peirse KCB who was to retain command until January 1942 when he became ill and on 3rd February the post was given to the legendary Air Marsh Sir Arthur Harris whose bombing policies were to raise much controversy in the post-war years. Much has been written about it with hindsight, but those of us who were about at the time have little doubt that it made a major contribution to ending the war with Germany.

‘Bomber Harris’ as he became known was quartered in a comfortable old farmhouse – called 'Springfield' at Great Kingshill, first rented and then purchased by the Air Ministry. From there he commuted at high speed down the narrow country lanes to Walters Ash in a green sports Bentley. Many will remember his light aircraft taking off and landing in ‘Soldiers Field’ next to the Sports Club. In his return from trips to France he would throw out handfuls of sweets near the School.

Pneumatic message tubes were installed between the Administration Offices and the Operations Block. The arrival of a ping pong ball down the tube was a ‘coded’ warning that always heralded Sir Arthur's arrival below deck.

Little seems to have been written of the Camp itself and this is not the place for a detailed account of Bomber Command's contribution to the war effort. I am much indebted however to a ‘History of Royal Air Force, High Wycombe’ by Sqdn. Ldr B.E. Escott, B.A., W.R.A.F., and to the many folk in the village who have talked to me.

On 10th April 1975 Strike Command became a major subordinate NATO command, to be known as Head Quarters United Kingdom Air Forces. R.A.F. Strike Command is by far the largest and most important part of the Royal Air Force and today controls all the front line combat aircraft in the U.K. and worldwide, with the exception of R.A.F. Germany. The A.O.C. in C (a NATO appointment) is Air Chief Marshal Sir David Craig.

'The Bunker’ of which we have heard so much of late, is not, as has been rumoured to be a storehouse for nuclear weapons, but an up-to-date control centre for the air defence of this country and our NATO allies.

The skill with which the huge pipe trench along Small Dean Lane has already been filled in and reseeded should go a long way to reassure us that the gigantic scar caused by work on 'the bunker’ itself will eventually merge into the hillside so that Nature may finish the restoration.