Bloody Hell! Jerry's beating up our field in one of those new fangled jet thingies! Well that's just not cricket let me tell you! Tally Ho!! 😎

Nice pair of Messerschmitts !!

24 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

Bloody Hell! Jerry's beating up our field in one of those new fangled jet thingies! Well that's just not cricket let me tell you! Tally Ho!! 😎

Nice pair of Messerschmitts !!

🤣🤣🤣

Nothing like these fighters screaming off from these grass (or are they called dirt..?) runways....(btw, liked the marker "26"...)..

Nice "Afternoon" shot...!!

Here's an interesting tale about Barton Aerodrome...

Someone I knew years ago, who lived on Barton Road, had loads of really interesting WW2 stories, and she told me about one of her relatives who had lived over the road from her. He had been a rear gunner on Lancasters (rather unsurprisingly, like a lot of blokes in that role, he did not survive the war). At the start of WW2 he had actually been a fireman, which was an occupation you could stay in without having to serve in the forces if you wanted to.

One day, he went into a pub in Old Trafford (not too far away from Barton and perhaps most famously, where Manchester United's ground is) with some of his fellow firemen, they having finished their shift at their nearby fire station. Apparently, some soldiers who were also in that pub whilst on leave, started poking fun at the firemen, calling them a bunch of 'five pound a week heroes', as in, they were getting good pay and not facing much danger during the war. Whilst that jibe is completely untrue, especially in Manchester where it was very heavily bombed with incendiaries many times, particularly around Old Trafford where many factories are located, making it extremely dangerous indeed for a fireman stationed there, her relative really took the insult to heart and insisted on enlisting, which is how he became a rear gunner and why he did not survive the war.

When he was serving as a rear gunner on Lancaster, most of his crew were from the North West of England, in and around Manchester and they wanted a visit home, so one morning when they were coming back off a mission, they 'accidentally on purpose' let the wind blow them further north than it should have done whilst they were above the clouds, so they had 'no choice' but to land their Lancaster at Barton Aerodrome. This was probably quite a risky thing to do since there would have been very many barrage balloons around that area at the time.

So, 'by sheer coincidence' they had landed near enough to all their homes to allow them to have a quick visit, whilst arrangements were made to get their Lancaster back to their base. Barton was an aircraft repair facility during the war, so the people at Barton were able to carry out the necessary work. Ordinarily that was the sort of thing where you'd get in trouble, but when you were regularly going over to the Ruhr Valley on bombing raids, what's the worst they could do to you? So they got away with it even though it was obviously a blag to get them a home visit.

Having flown from Barton Aerodrome many times, I can tell you that it's not that big, historians will tell you that the largest aeroplanes to operate from there regularly were the DC-3s of Aer Lingus, but because of this interesting tale, I know for a fact that you can get get a Lancaster Bomber down on there, you just can't easily get one off it!

An excellent story to follow an excellent picture! 😎

So.. Chock, have you got a Lanc in your virtual hangar and would you care to give us a demo scaring the Trafford Centre, the M62 and the M60?  (I haven't)

4 hours ago, Chock said:

Here's an interesting tale about Barton Aerodrome...

Someone I knew years ago, who lived on Barton Road, had loads of really interesting WW2 stories, and she told me about one of her relatives who had lived over the road from her. He had been a rear gunner on Lancasters (rather unsurprisingly, like a lot of blokes in that role, he did not survive the war). At the start of WW2 he had actually been a fireman, which was an occupation you could stay in without having to serve in the forces if you wanted to.

One day, he went into a pub in Old Trafford (not too far away from Barton and perhaps most famously, where Manchester United's ground is) with some of his fellow firemen, they having finished their shift at their nearby fire station. Apparently, some soldiers who were also in that pub whilst on leave, started poking fun at the firemen, calling them a bunch of 'five pound a week heroes', as in, they were getting good pay and not facing much danger during the war. Whilst that jibe is completely untrue, especially in Manchester where it was very heavily bombed with incendiaries many times, particularly around Old Trafford where many factories are located, making it extremely dangerous indeed for a fireman stationed there, her relative really took the insult to heart and insisted on enlisting, which is how he became a rear gunner and why he did not survive the war.

When he was serving as a rear gunner on Lancaster, most of his crew were from the North West of England, in and around Manchester and they wanted a visit home, so one morning when they were coming back off a mission, they 'accidentally on purpose' let the wind blow them further north than it should have done whilst they were above the clouds, so they had 'no choice' but to land their Lancaster at Barton Aerodrome. This was probably quite a risky thing to do since there would have been very many barrage balloons around that area at the time.

So, 'by sheer coincidence' they had landed near enough to all their homes to allow them to have a quick visit, whilst arrangements were made to get their Lancaster back to their base. Barton was an aircraft repair facility during the war, so the people at Barton were able to carry out the necessary work. Ordinarily that was the sort of thing where you'd get in trouble, but when you were regularly going over to the Ruhr Valley on bombing raids, what's the worst they could do to you? So they got away with it even though it was obviously a blag to get them a home visit.

Having flown from Barton Aerodrome many times, I can tell you that it's not that big, historians will tell you that the largest aeroplanes to operate from there regularly were the DC-3s of Aer Lingus, but because of this interesting tale, I know for a fact that you can get get a Lancaster Bomber down on there, you just can't easily get one off it!

Great story.  My step-dad served on a B17 and met my mother while on an Edinburgh leave which is how I eventually arrived in the U.S. (long story there).