Saturday 11^th May 2019

To commemorate the 75^th Anniversary of D Day this year, many functions have been arranged at the air museum to recognise the achievements of the Armed forces, in fact tomorrow a group of D Day veterans will be visiting the air base to attend a ceremony of remembrance.

Today the museum has been transformed into RAF Elvington, a 1944 working airfield and airbase. It was the night before D Day with lots of re-enactors taking the place of the ground and air crews from that time. There was a Halifax Mission Briefings 158 Squadron prior to Halifax ‘Friday the Thirteenth’ mission over Grandcamp Maisy in France, in the ‘Elvington room’. If felt quite surreal at times as I watched an aircrew walking across the tarmac heading off to the Halifax Bomber.  Behind the aircraft a group of young men sat, mugs of tea in hand, cigarettes drooping from their mouths, anxiously waiting as they listened to the briefing officer give them details of their next flying mission. Close by a group of Wrens were chatting to some of the other flight crews prior to them leaving on another overseas bombing raid. Around the ‘Bell tents’ were another group of officers getting kitted up with all their flying gear, alas no one piece pressure suits it was layers of clothing and thick leather jackets and fleece lined boots!

It was quite scary looking at the Halifax bomber and the mid and rear gunner turrets, the conditions that those men had to work in were quite horrendous, let alone the chances of being shot by the enemy. Every mission must have been a lottery, never knowing if you were going to return to base or not.

Outside the door of the NAFFI the ‘Seatones’ were singing songs reminiscent of the war years and sounded and looked quite excellent. On the tarmac adjacent to the NAFFI were the York Vintage Dance Group, all dressed in clothes of that time and dancing to the music of the ‘Seatones’.  I can quite clearly remember my parents dressed very similarly when I was a child. Over in the Canadian Memorial hanger were demonstrations on parachute packing.

On the opposite of the tarmac to where the Halifax bomber was situated, I watched and listened to a fascinating demonstration on how to defuse a huge 1.000lb German parachute bomb by one of the Royal Navel reservists from HMS Vernon, it was quite gripping at times as he explained the different tricks the Germans would use to booby-trap the mechanisms and inner workings of the bomb. It was interesting watching him use many of the tools and kit specifically designed and made for such a situation and the job that each particular tool was used for.

Many of the aircraft had been moved outside today, it was good that you could climb into and have a look around the Dakota which although built in the mid 1930’s had been flying up and till the early 1980’s, the same aircraft had also been used ‘recently’ in the television series ‘Band of Brothers’ appertaining to the airborne D Day landings.

By early afternoon feeling a little weary with all the walking about as well as the beautiful sunny weather, I headed over to the NAFFI for coffee and cake before the short journey home. A fantastic day out.