A brief history of RAF Digby & the RCAF

Scopwick experienced enemy action from the air in 1918 when a Zeppelin dropped some bombs into a field just north of Scopwick Lodge, about a mile to the west of the village and a mile north of the aerodrome. This field is still known locally as "Bomb Field".

RAF Digby remained open after the end of the conflicts of the first world war and in 1935-36 it was re-modelled. The seven hangars which stood on the site of the present barrack block were replaced by new hangars, one of which still stands today but is used as a sports hall. During WW2 RAF Digby was to become a Fighter Station with grass runways, unlike most Lincolnshire airfields, which were built for bombers, with concrete runways.

Digby also had satellite stations and wartime strips at Wellingore Heath and Coleby Grange to accommodate extra aircraft and to provide some safety by the wider dispersal of manpower and machinery. The operations room was also off base, being in Blankney Hall, by kind permission of Lady Londesborough, who moved into a side wing of the hall during the conflict. RAF vehicles were continually on the roads during the war years and in June 1942 this led to the death of Private George Harrod (father of local resident, Rosie Creasey of Metheringham) of the 2nd Kesteven Batallion Home Guard. He was off duty at the time and in charge of a horse and cart in the area of Blankney Hall when the horse bolted and the cart overturned, killing the young driver, who is buried amongst the military graves in the Scopwick Graveyard extension, off Vicarage Lane. It is generally believed that the horse was frightened by a passing RAF vehicle.

Among the duties of the squadrons based at Digby were contributions to the Advanced Air Strike Force in France in 1939, the Allied Expeditionary Force in Norway 1940 and the Combined Operation in Dieppe in 1942. Its general purpose, however, was to provide fighter cover for this part of England, including the North Sea and the protection of bombers returning from raids over Germany, sometimes in a crippled state. Much training work was done and during the Battle of Britain in particular, squadrons would come to Digby from further south to recuperate and re-train.

RAF Digby was to see a number of famous names join their ranks during wartime Britain, including Guy Gibson and Douglas Bader. King George VI presented decorations to personnel at the station, including a DFC to Gibson and in September 1942 a similar decoration for Flying Officer J A Rae(better known as TV singer-compere Jackie Rae).

In February 1941 the RAF base saw the arrival of the first members of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in the guise of No 1 Squadron (RCAF) (known as the Red Indian Squadron by the emblem which they carried) This squadron (and similarly No 2 Squadron, who arrived soon after) were quickly renumbered by the RAF to avoid confusion and carried the numbers 401 & 402 Squadron. In August 1941 Group Captain A P Campbell RCAF became the first Canadian to be appointed Commanding Officer.

RAF Digby saw its fair share of personnel losses during both world wars, sadly not only in action but also during "flying practice, etc." Some 50 of these are laid to rest in the churchyard at Scopwick (known locally as Scopwick War Cemetery). This area of the cemetery is meticulously maintained by the War Graves Commission. Among those buried here in January 1942 was Jean Offenberg, a Belgian pilot, whose Spitfire was involved in a mid-air collision over the airfield and crashed, killing all. Lady Londesborough attended his funeral but some time later Offenberg's body was transferred to Brussels for re-burial. Offenberg was highly regarded and his autobiography "The Lonely Warrior" is regarded by many as a classic.

The first member of the RCAF to be buried at Scopwick (merely a month after their initial arrival) was in March 1941 when Flying Officer C P Henderson (aged 21) crashed on a test flight only a mile from the airfield.

Another accident led to the death of the youngest personnel to die, 19 year old Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, an American in the RCAF, whose Spitfire collided with an Airspeed Oxford training aircraft at Cranwell, killing both pilots. Magee was buried with full military honours in December 1941. A copy of his well known poem "High Flight" hangs in All Saints Church, Scopwick; two lines appear on his grave:

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth...
Put out my hand and touched the face of God".

These lines received worldwide publicity when Ronald Reagan, President of the USA, quoted them in a speech after the Challenger Shuttle disaster in January 1986.

The last of the 37 RCAF to be buried in Scopwick cemetery was that of Flying Officer A J Morris who was yet another to die by other means than in "action" as his Spitfire was in collision with that of a fellow officer F/O D Sherk who miraculously landed his aircraft with a buckled wing .

There are also five Luftwaffe airmen's graves at Scopwick, four of whom died when their aircraft crashed at Coleby in January 1943 after a raid on Lincoln. The fifth man died as a prisoner of war in February 1946.

In September 1942 RAF Digby was taken over by the RCAF and until the end of the war was known as Royal Canadian Air Force Station, Digby. Most of the RCAF Squadron had departed from Digby by early 1944 with 441 & 442 Squadron returning briefly in mid 1945 before their final departure for Molesworth, Cambridgeshire. The remaining RAF Squadron (527 Sq) left for RAF Watton (Norfolk) in November 1945 leaving Tiger Moth trainers to use the airfield during 1946.

At the height of activity in December 1944 RAF Digby saw some 2,500 servicemen and women based here and at her satellite stations. This was several times the population of the villages of Scopwick and Kirby Green. It was further affected by the building of the bomber airfield on Martin Moor (only three miles away), known as RAF Metheringham where a further 1,200 personnel were housed at this same time.
Wireless aerials now stand where aircraft used to take-off and land. The station had been used by Fighter Command, Flying Training, Fighter Signals and Technical Training Command at various times and is one of the oldest stations used by the RAF, with a continuous record of service covering almost a century.

In July 1945, as the war was approaching an end, the Operations Room based at Blankney Hall was to suffer a fire which saw the Hall destroyed (this was 65 years ago on 15 July). Virtually all the WAAFs housed there lost their personal equipment and possessions.

The base remained under the control of RAF Cranwell until early 1948 and by 1953 all types of flying had ended with the base now used for ground training and other such training. This said, without doubt, RAF Digby will for ever go down in the annals of aeronautical history which can be seen from the following extract originally published in the Lincolnshire Echo in July 2010 and reprinted with their permission.

The nephew of a Canadian war hero flew across the Atlantic to RAF Digby to pay a final tribute to his uncle. Bruce Petersen, accompanied by his son Tom Petersen, flew over from Canada to pay his respects to his uncle, Norman Petersen, at a special Canadian memorial day at RAF Digby.

Norman Bredsgaard Petersen joined the Canadian Air Force in 1935, when he was 22. He was killed in September 1941, alongside his crewman Pilot Officer Slater, when their Beaufighter aircraft R2469 stalled at low altitude and crashed at Coleby Grange near Metheringham.

Bruce and Tom Petersen flew to Lincolnshire to attend the National Canada Day tribute and honour their late uncle and great-uncle. The wreath-laying formed part of a special ceremony, held at RAF Digby, to commemorate the support Lincolnshire received from the Canadian Air Force during the Second World War.

Extracts of the ceremony and the Patersen's visit was shown on BBC Look North. Bruce Petersen explained the importance of the visit to Digby for his family. "Norm' was my father's brother and the two of them were all I ever knew of family," he said. "I was six when he came over to Lincolnshire and seven when he died in the crash. "As a youngster, he used to buy me presents for birthdays and Christmas, and they always had a military background. "These are momentoes I have to remind me of my uncle."

At the ceremony, Bruce and Tom Petersen were also introduced to Gerald Carter, who lived at the site where Norman Petersen crashed nearly 69-years-ago. Mr Carter was 13 when the crash occurred, which saw an aircraft propeller smash through his roof.

Tom Petersen explained how the two came to meet. "I've been searching the Lincolnshire area to find out more about my great-uncle for some time and found the Metheringham website, (www.macla.co.uk)" he said. "Gerald had posted a comment about a Beaufighter crash from 1941 and I contacted the website to see if I could get his e-mail address directly and they gave me it". "We've been e-mailing since December 2009 and met for the first time this summer going to the actual site of the crash". "It's been exciting to be here. It's like a piece of the puzzle we never had before, and it's exciting to get closer and closer to finding out what happened .

I send sincere thanks for your efforts in helping us locate Gerald. If it hadn't been for your website and the efforts of all your members, none of this would have happened!
Thanks Tom Petersen