Atcham Airfield

Today I'm talking about Atcham airfield, or at least what's left of it. I'd been meaning to have a mooch around this place for ages, and it doesnt make sense that I haven't. I've blogged about loads of airfields, even one in Germany. Somehow the one that's only a few miles from my front door has gone undocumented. Luckily lockdown gave me the perfect opportunity to check it out.

There was this false narative at the time that we were only allowed out for an hour each day for some reason. However the official rules didn't specify a time limit on our "daily exercise" as long as people were social distancing, because for all their flaws, even the government knew that Covid-19 wasn't sat watching a clock thinking "Ah, this human has been outdoors for fifty-eight minutes. Just two more to go before I can get to work!"

The one hour limit was imposed by people in no real position of authority, and enforced by herd condemnation, in much the same way they abused the poor saps who were on the toilet or something at 8pm on a Thursday. When I asked people why a two hour walk in isolation was more dangerous than twenty minutes in a crowded supermarket, I was sworn at a lot by people who couldn't spell before someone finally gave me the closest thing to a logical explanation- that if I go for a long walk, and fall, I might need someone to help me back up. Well, if that's the thread of logic we're following, let's just ban food in case you choke and need someone to perform a heimlich.

Faced with either staying in with my internet-induced plummeting faith in humanity, or having an adventure, I chose the latter, and it was great. My walk around Atcham airfield took most of the day, and I returned home with a sense of accomplishment, sore feet and a mouth dryer than Maggie Thatchers gash.

Here it is!

Not much is left of Atcham airfield. The main runway was long ago broken up and restored to farm land, while the control tower was demolished to make way for an industrial estate. All that's really left is a bunch of scattered defensive buildings, lost in the countryside and woods, waiting to be found.

We'll start with this pillbox!

A pillbox is basically a defensive outpost. If the enemy was approaching, the British soldiers could defend the location by firing through the "windows" from relative safety. This one appears to be guarding a bridge. However during World War 2 the Germans never actually managed to set foot on British soil, so these were mostly just precautionary and never actually put to the test.

This one doesn't have a door as such, but a duck hole that leads onto some steps.

They're a lot more spacious than they look on the outside.

Atcham airfield opened in 1941, when it was used by the RAF. Throughout my research I came across plenty of anecdotes related to the airfield, almost always involving someone crashing and killing someone or something. A few of the folks stationed here also went on to have pretty interesting war stories.
In September 1941 a Belgian pilot named Henri Picard accidentally collided with a two-seated Miles Magister aircraft on Atcham airfield, killing both of the occupants. But it's his life afterwards that's particularly interesting.

He was shot down in 1942 and ended up floating injured on the English channel for six days before washing up on the French coast where he was ultimately found and captured by the Germans. He recovered in the POW camp Stalag Luft III, and was later instrumental in "The Great Escape," by being one of those who meticulously forged German documents and made perfect replica German rifles for any who were escaping in disguise as Germans. On the night of 24th March 1944 he was one of 76 men who successfully made it out of the POW camp through underground tunnels.
 From there he headed towards neutral Sweden. However, as impressive as sneaking 76 prisoners out of a prison camp is, the Germans totally noticed and launched a manhunt. Picard wasn't lucky enough to avoid recapture, and he was eventually executed by the gestapo.

Here he is posing with his Spitfire at Atcham in 1941.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

Moving into more overgrown territory, I almost missed this pillbox. Back in the 1940s it would have been guarding the river, but now nature has claimed it back.

 

 

Given its setting, all overgrown away from any footpath, I was quite surprised at the level of graffiti in this one, and the clutter. All this could have been put here potentially decades ago, when the pillbox was more noticeable.

 

 

I love that the graffiti is all about peace and anti-war. 

 

Moving on from the river and the pillbox, I found even more ruins hidden in the woods.

I have no idea what purpose this building would have had, but it's one of many still extant and crumbling away in the woods.

When RAF Condover opened in 1942, it was intended to be a satellite airfield for Atcham, which I think means that it was used for maintenance of the Atcham squadrons, and also for dispersing the planes across numerous airfields so as to minimise the impact on the war effort if one airfield was attacked. But I'm not 100% sure on that.

But Condovers time as Atchams Satellite was short lived, because in June 1942 Atcham airfield was handed over to the American pilots for training.

Also arriving at Atcham in 1942 was Sir Alan Smith, an ace spitfire pilot who had five confirmed kills in 1941. He had also been a wingman to Douglas Bader, an inspirational figure if ever there was one. Bader lost his legs, and nearly his life, in a plane accident in 1931. He clearly wasn't one for letting the loss of both his legs be anything more than a minor setback though. Once he recovered, he got prosthetics, and retook his pilot training. In spite of passing, he was retired from the RAF against his will for medical reasons, but when the war broke our he was accepted back, proving himself to be pretty formidable, shooting down 22 German planes.
When he met Alan Smith, Bader simply said "Right, you'll do. God help you if you let any German get on my tail." And so they became a dynamic duo, with Alan Smith often described as a "leech like" and "the perfect Number Two." I guess he kissed arse a bit, but lets be honest, its difficult to not have respect for Bader. Especially in todays society where people look for any excuse not to work.

Alas, Alan Smith had a head cold in August 1941 and was unable to go with Bader on a flight. Bader was subsequently shot down over France. While he was able to escape the aircraft, he did so at the loss of one of his prosthetic legs, and he was captured by the Germans upon landing. He was a prisoner of war right up until the camp was liberated by the US army in 1945. However even as a POW Bader was awesome. In a surprising twist, the Germans actually respected him for his endurance, and liased with the British to have the RAF fly over and parachute him a replacement prosthetic in what the British military actually called "Operation Leg." The Germans promised to grant free passage to the RAF during Operation Leg, so of course the British sent a Blenheim Bomber, which later made use of its free passage over enemy ground to carry out a bombing raid.

As soon as he had his new prosthetic leg, Bader made a rope out of bedsheets and attempted to climb out of the window. He was caught, but this was not his last escape. He made it his mission to be a nuisance to the Germans for as long as they held him.

Perhaps if Alan Smith had joined him his capture would have been avoided, or maybe Alan would have taken part in his escape antics at the POW camp. However Alan Smith now had a greater calling. At Atcham Airfield he was given the illustrious task of teaching the Americans how to fly a British Spitfire. It was a bit of a disaster.

 (Alan at Atcham, 1942. Photo not mine, obviously)

As I made my way through the woods, I almost missed this structure entirely. Nature has completely engulfed this pillbox. It would have once helped guard the airfield but now it's hidden away. And given that it hasn't a hint of vandalism or graffiti, I doubt many people even knows it's here.

The entrance was tricky to find too. It had this little duck hole hidden by all the overgrowth.

Once inside it was a fairly standard pillbox, although it's impossible to see much through the gun windows now.

So as of 1942 Atcham airfield became known to the locals as "Little America." Loads of American pilots came here to train. Quite bizarrely, the airfield actually allowed the public to just swing by for a visit, and it was not uncommon for soldiers to let children sit in the aircraft... that was until one child accidentally fired up a spitfire, and restrictions on public access had to be put in place.
Whoopsie!

It was a bit of a culture shock for the Americans, most of which came from states like Georgia and Louisiana. The June of 1942 was said to be quite good by British standards, which I understand is a vague statement that could mean anything from "It was hot" to "It stopped raining for longer than fifteen minutes," but apparently it was a real scortcher! But much to the shock of the Brits, the Americans disagreed. They were cold as fuck and completely puzzled by the British acting like it was summer.

It turned out that the American aircraft were initially unsuitable for the war effort, so here at Atcham they trained in Spitfires. Atcham airfield had the relatively unusual presence of British Spitfires decorated with American stars.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

But if you think the sight of a star-spangled spitfire is uncommon, the Americans set out to make it even rarer! They just couldn't get the hang of them! Some of the British said, in much politer terms, that the Americans were a little fat for the small confines of the aircraft. Whatever the reason, the Americans somehow managed to trash 21 aircraft in just sixteen days, and a couple of men even died. A crisis meeting was held and Colonel John R Hawkins read the riot act and everything.

That August they participated in Operation Jubilee, an attack on German-occupied Dieppe in France. The attack lasted just six hours until the Germans defensive capabilities forced them to retreat.

Another pillbox lurks in the woods, although this is bigger than any I've seen before.

But check it out! This is a rare discovery. The gun frames are still here, rusty but complete. The majority of pillboxes have had these removed, but this one seems to have gone unnoticed.

Here's another building.

It's obviously military but I have no idea what it could have been used for. It's not offering any clues either. The roof has long since vanished and nature has taken it back.

After Operation Jubilee, that particular squadron was relocated, and another group came to Atcham from California. Unlike the squadron before them, they flew P-38 Lightnings. Among their many missions, they escorted bombers to France, fought in Tunisia, and then Italy before getting transfered to Algeria in November.

Numerous other American training squadrons made use of Atcham Airfield throughout 1943 and 1944, flying in hand-me-down aircraft, stuff that wasn't ready for war and stuff that was war weary.
And of course, accidents still happened.

Quite famously in 1944 someone crashed on their way to Atcham airfield. While Atcham was the intended destination, Lt Richard Dunlap suffered an engine failure at 3000 feet. He attempted an emergency landing at Wheaton Aston, but ended up skidding across a field, killing two cows and coming to a halt in the Shropshire Union Canal.

Somehow there is a local legend that the ghost of the pilot still haunts this area alongside the canal... which is unusual because Lt Richard Dunlap survived the crash completely unharmed. Maybe the ghostly footsteps heard belong to those cows...

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Check this out! One could be forgiven for taking a stroll in these woods and missing this entirely!  Pushing through the gap in the overgrowth revealed this awesome bomb shelter.

There are a few more bomb shelters scattered around the woods, and they're all amazingly free of vandalism. There's no graffiti, nothings been smashed and nothing has been set on fire. All of the decay is natural. The war ended, and all this stuff was just left. I'm not arrogant enough to think I'm the first person to come here since, but anyone who did come here clearly respected the history.

This building has a clearly trodden path through the nettles leading to the door... but that was me! I took the external shot afterwards. I'm not sure when these buildings were last visited, but these have gone ignored for a long fucking time!

The doors still attached, but rusty and hanging open.

I'm  not sure what this would have been, but presumably there was once something fixed to that slab on the floor. A generator maybe?

Moving on, and away from the woods, Atcham airfield also has a seagull trench! These things are awesome!

Now these work a little similar to Pillboxes, in that they're defence outposts. In the event of a ground invasion, the soldiers would have fired out from these structures at ankle level, hitting the enemy and being relatively safe themselves, although they were never put to the test.

Allegedly there are only something like 21 seagull trenches left in the UK, and Shropshire has quite a few. In fact this is my fifth. The others have shown up in various other blogs.

Access to the Seagull Trench can be found a few feet away in this little brick stairway.

The stairway leads to this big underground concrete tube, which brings us out into the "wings" of the seagull trench.

They're called Seagull Trenches because from the sky they appear to be shaped like birds, with the entrance being central and the wings being the part from which people were stationed.

I've often wondered why, of all avians, the Seagull was chosen when there's more formidable birds out there. Hawk Trench sounds far more military. Seagulls are only really a menace if you have chips at the beach.

As with pillboxes, it's rare to find them with the gun frames still in place.

Atcham airfield also has a mushroom pillbox lurking in a bush, looking like a leftover prop from a science fiction movie. I haven't seen one of these since Long Marston.

Like regular pillboxes and seagul trenches this is a defence installation from which one can open fire on approaching enemies. It's just circular instead. Like the rest, it's surprisingly spacious.

Only one stop remained, although I have no doubt at all that many more are lost in the woods. But the Battle HQ is on the to-do list of every visit to an old airfield. Unfortunately as I approached this one, I realised something disheartening. It was in a garden, situated beneath a treehouse.
So for obvious reasons, I won't be showing it. I don't want to intrude on a residential premises.

But I will say that whoever grows up with a Battle HQ and a treehouse is damn lucky.

For those who don't know, the Battle HQ is an underground facility with an observation room above ground from which the defence of the airfield would be organised from. Those stationed there would have communicated with all the pillboxes and seagull trenches to co-ordinate the airfield defenses during an attack.
Luckily, they're fairly uniform in their layout, much like a 1960s ROC bunker. All were built identical with a few exceptions, so click here to see another one of Shropshires Battle HQs if you want to know what the interior looks like.

That blog also includes the decoy site that I'm told was for Atcham airfield. It would have lit up a field at night to look like an airfield to any passing German bombers, so that they'd hopefully bomb the wrong place.

Atcham Airfield was returned to the RAF in 1945, along with what was left of the Spitfires. It then became a satelite airfield for RAF Ternhill, which is still active to this day. Unlike Ternhill, Atcham wasn't so lucky. They only used the airfield up until the end of the war... all one month of it.

It was officially abandoned as of October 1946, and then in 1958 the runway was broken up and the control tower demolished. It had a decade of being candy for any urban explorers who might have existed back then. No doubt they did.

There is one final structure that I want to look at, and that's a few miles north of Atcham, obviously military but quite unusual in design.

Apparently this was another decoy, used to light up the surrounding area to look like a runway, and hopefully draw the bombs from the Germans. Apparently this one served Shawbury airfield, but looking at google maps it seems to be closer to Atcham. It's also closer to Atcham than the decoy site that I was told was for Atcham. Maybe I've got my wires crossed. Maybe my sources are mistaken.

But Shropshire had loads of military bases during the war, and really at night time it didn't matter who the decoy sites were meant to represent, so long as the Germans fell for it.

This has an access hatch but no ladder. Fortunately, there's a side entrance.

It seems to have been fenced off to stop cows from going in.

On the inside there's not much going on, although once again it's lacking in graffiti.

There would have been a generator in here, and I've also heard that it would have been manned. That must have been a pretty tense job! Imagine if your duty was to make sure the bombs came to you instead of somewhere else!

But I guess this was a time when real patriotism was pulling together and everyone doing their bit to help stop the spread of a fascist ideology instead of just reading the daily mail and going online to complain in ironically second-language level English grammar about black people being on fathers day adverts. How times have changed.

War ruins continue to dot the country, looking very post-apocalyptic, when in actual fact many were redundant before the war was even over. These pillboxes were built in a time when enemies touching down on British soil was highly anticipated, and then as the war progressed it became apparent that this wasn't going to happen. Nevertheless these things remain scattered around our countryside, far too numerous for me to ever completely document.
Upon returning from this adventure, which took considerably more than one hour and didn't involve contact with any other humans whatsoever, a grumpy person on the internet told me that I am single-handedly responsible for the second wave. So... uh... sorry about that. 

If I don't die (shocking, I know), my next blog will be a very quirky abandoned house, and then I'll be checking out an abandoned pub. It'll be awesome. In the meantime, follow my Instagram, Like my Facebook and Follow my Twitter.

Thanks for reading!