Saturday 7^th May 2022

I had been looking forward to today since the last event of this kind back in 2019 at the Yorkshire Air Museum at Elvington. The Covid pandemic put paid to similar events for 2020 and 2021, so it was nice to be back again to the ‘We’ll Meet Again 40’s Day’.

It was just after 10.00am as I arrived in the car park on a dull, grey and overcast morning, but at least it was dry and wasn’t raining. There was already a steady trickle of cars and visitors filing into the car park as I made my way to the entrance. I was actually in good time as most of the main activities didn’t get started till a little later in the morning, so I was able to have a good browse around the restoration hanger and then, my favourite, the T2 Hanger were my old friends the Buccaneers and Harrier are displayed along with the massive Hadley Page Halifax Mk111. It always makes me feel quite nostalgic being close to these aircraft, I suppose it is because much of my early life was spent working on the Buccaneer and Harrier. Today, the Halifax had been repositioned on the apron outside of the hanger.

Across the site were displays of vintage army vehicles, demonstrations, one in particular on how to defuse a massive, unexploded bomb was extremely interesting, a very good dance band were playing in front of the museum café and a dance group, all in 1940’ dress was dancing on the adjacent tarmac to music of the 1930’s and 1940’s. The airfield and surrounding buildings were full of reenactors standing around in groups, chatting and posing for photographers, if you let your imagination wander for a few moments you would think you were transformed back on the base during the war years when RAF Elvington was home to the Bomber command in 1945 and No 77 squadron and French squadron 346 were actually stationed there at that time.

Some of the reenactors, positioned alongside the Halifax bomber gave a fascinating presentation on the dress and equipment the seven airmen/crew of the bomber would have worn on the many flying missions from the base during the war.

It was a really good exhibition, and nice to see the museum buzzing with lots of visitors enjoying the day.