RAF East Kirkby

RAF East Kirkby opened on 20 August 1943 as a No. 5 Group bomber station and was home to Nos. 57 and 630 Squadrons, whose Lancasters flew until the last operational sortie on 25 April 1945. Its worst night in the air was the Wesseling raid of 21/22 June 1944, when eleven aircraft failed to return. Its worst hour never left the ground: at about 17:40 on 17 April 1945, three weeks before the war in Europe ended, an explosion tore through a Lancaster being bombed up, set fully loaded aircraft alight on adjacent dispersals and went on detonating. Four men were killed — Corporals Thomas Stanley Dixon, George William Johnson and Matthew Bulmer, and Leading Aircraftman Arnold Price — and six officers and airmen were later decorated for going back in while the bombs were still exploding. The airfield is now the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, opened in 1988 by two Lincolnshire farmers in memory of a brother killed over Germany, with the Grade II listed control tower restored and Lancaster NX611 'Just Jane' under restoration to fly. Its ghost stories are third-hand and datable to 2003; the museum itself tells none of them.

East Kirkby began as a deception. From 1940 the flat farmland beside the village carried a decoy site — a dummy airfield built to draw German bombs away from targets that mattered. The real station was laid over it from 1942 by the contractor John Laing & Sons: three intersecting concrete runways across requisitioned Lincolnshire farmland, and a control tower built to Air Ministry drawing 12779/41 in rendered brick under an asphalt roof, with the watch office, duty pilot's rest room and meteorological office below and the control room and signals office above. The station opened on 20 August 1943 as a heavy bomber base in No. 5 Group, Bomber Command. No. 57 Squadron's advance party arrived on 27 August 1943, and the squadron flew its first operation from the new airfield on 30 August, fourteen Lancasters detailed for Mönchengladbach. On 15 November 1943 the squadron's B Flight was expanded into a unit of its own, No. 630 Squadron, and the two shared East Kirkby for the rest of the war. The station's worst night in the air is precisely dated. On 21/22 June 1944 No. 5 Group attacked the synthetic oil plant at Wesseling and lost close to a third of the force despatched. Eleven Lancasters failed to return to East Kirkby, six from 57 Squadron and five from 630, and the 630 Squadron losses are documented crew by crew. ND531 'K-Kitty' went down with Squadron Leader Arthur Edgar Foster DFC, aged 23, and all seven of his crew, who have no graves and are commemorated at Runnymede. ME782 'N-Nan' was shot down by a night fighter near Turnhout, killing Pilot Officer Thomas George Hart RCAF, 21, and everyone aboard, buried at Schoonselhof. ME843 'U-Uncle' was shot down between Hamont and Bocholt by Hauptmann Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer, killing Pilot Officer Robert Cecil Hooper DFC, 22, and all seven of his crew, buried at Heverlee. LM118 'V-Victor' crashed south of Boxtel with Pilot Officer John Henry George Smith, 21, and his crew, buried at Eindhoven. Only ME795 'G-George' came down over England, where Flying Officer Lionel Norman Rackley RAAF was injured and six of the crew parachuted clear; Flight Sergeant William Alfred Cecil Davis was killed. Twenty-eight men from one squadron, in one night. Across the war 57 Squadron lost 90 aircraft and 630 Squadron 72. No. 630 Squadron's own operational history — compiled from the squadron Operations Record Book, AIR 27 at The National Archives, which its compilers warn contains many flaws, and from testimony gathered from former members between 1982 and 2019 — counts 2,513 sorties, 1,218 men who flew operationally, 446 killed or missing, 67 taken prisoner, 29 who evaded, six interned in Sweden and 17 more killed in training accidents. Of 162 operational crews, 64 were lost: just under forty per cent. A claim often repeated about this airfield is that its losses were among the heaviest of any Lincolnshire bomber base. Lincolnshire held dozens of airfields, no published ranking has been found that supports the comparison, and so it is not made here; the figures above are the ones that can be cited. The airfield's worst hour, though, never left the ground. At about 17:40 on the evening of Tuesday 17 April 1945, three weeks before the war in Europe ended, 57 Squadron aircraft were being bombed up at dispersal for a 5 Group attack on railway targets near the German-Czech border. Bombing up was almost complete when an explosion tore through one of the aircraft. The official citation for the awards that followed, published in the London Gazette on 27 November 1945, describes what happened next in flat administrative English: 'A number of airmen and soldiers working in the vicinity were injured, two of them fatally. Two, and eventually three, aircraft already fully bombed up on adjacent dispersal positions caught fire, and shortly afterwards the bombs on these aircraft started to explode.' What set it off is not settled, and the confident versions in circulation are more confident than the record. Several accounts state that a fused 1,000 lb bomb was dropped on the tarmac; 630 Squadron's history says the cause has been speculated as a petrol spillage; the Gazette citation says only that 'an explosion occurred in an aircraft which was being prepared for operations'. Nine 1,000 lb and thirty-four 500 lb medium capacity bombs detonated. Four Lancasters were burning at the height of it, and 57 Squadron's loss tables record six aircraft written off that day with the cause given as bomb explosion: ND765, PD347, RF195, LM763, ND472 and PB360. Four men were killed, and they have names. Corporal Thomas Stanley Dixon RAFVR, 30, of Dukinfield. Leading Aircraftman Arnold Price RAFVR, 24, of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, buried in Manchester Southern Cemetery. Corporal George William Johnson RAFVR, 33, of Wombwell. And Corporal Matthew Bulmer of the Pioneer Corps, 29, son of Matthew and Miriam Bulmer and husband of Alice May Bulmer of Prendergast, Pembrokeshire, buried in Lincoln (Newport) Cemetery — a soldier, not an airman, killed on a bomber station. Among the injured were Leading Aircraftman A. Daley, Corporal R. J. Piper, Private E. Turner, Corporal Dougherty, Leading Aircraftman F. Challis, Corporal J. Martin and Leading Aircraftman R. Stubbs. Six men were decorated for what they did while the bombs were still going off. Flying Officer John Aidan Hastings Gott GM (154963) and Flying Officer Courtenay Cecil Grebby (133289), the station fire officer, were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire; the British Empire Medal went to Corporal Raymond Graham Forster (916695), Corporal Leslie John Daniel Friswell (1184210), Leading Aircraftman Frederick Phillip Brown (1863590) and Leading Aircraftman William Edward Thaxton (1037853). The citation is worth reading for the detail. Gott and Grebby found a soldier lying near the blazing wreckage with his clothing on fire, put out the flames and gave him first aid, then extinguished fires that had taken hold in the tyres of loaded bomb trolleys. Ordered to evacuate, Grebby stayed and asked permission to recover a body lying by a burning aircraft; a bomb went off and opened a deep wound in his thigh. Lying on a stretcher in great pain, he 'asked to be assured that no injured persons were being left in danger while he was being given a place in the ambulance'. Gott was the last to leave the scene, taking the last of the injured out in his own car. Forster, in charge of the men servicing the aircraft in which the first explosion happened, was in a hut fifty yards away; injured and severely shaken, he went straight back. Brown was knocked down by the blast and had to dig himself out of the wreckage of a flight hut before he went towards it. Thaxton, arriving with the station fire party, was hit by a bomb burst; his corporal was thrown down and severely injured, and Thaxton carried him to safety and then returned. The citation ends by crediting the six with 'outstanding courage and initiative which resulted in the saving of many lives'. East Kirkby flew its last operational sortie on 25 April 1945, was worked up as a Tiger Force base for the war against Japan, and passed to care and maintenance in November 1945. It reopened in 1954 in support of RAF and USAF movements to the Far East, housed American transport aircraft, and closed in 1958. The Ministry of Defence disposed of the site in 1970. What brought it back was a private grief, and not one of this airfield's own. Pilot Officer Christopher Witton Panton, a flight engineer aged 19, was killed on the night of 30/31 March 1944 when his 433 Squadron RCAF Halifax III, HX272, was shot down on the Nuremberg raid; he flew not from East Kirkby but from Skipton-on-Swale in Yorkshire, and he is buried at Durnbach, south of Munich. His younger brothers, the Lincolnshire farmers Fred and Harold Panton, bought the derelict East Kirkby airfield and made it his memorial. In September 1983 Fred Panton bought Lancaster NX611 from Lord Lilford; it arrived at East Kirkby in July 1987 after thirteen years as gate guardian at RAF Scampton, reassembled over some thirteen weeks by RAF Abingdon personnel, and the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre opened to the public in 1988. The control tower was restored as the centrepiece of the museum and is listed Grade II. One honest distinction the museum's visitors are owed: NX611 never flew a wartime operation and never served at East Kirkby. It was built at Austin Motors' Longbridge works in April 1945, the third Lancaster B.VII off the line, and was intended for Tiger Force; Japan surrendered and it went into storage at RAF Llandow. Sold to the French Navy in April 1952 as WU15, it flew maritime reconnaissance from Brittany, Morocco and later New Caledonia before withdrawal in 1964. Registered G-ASXX, it was flown from Australia to Biggin Hill in 1965, restored to flight by the Historic Aircraft Preservation Society, and made its last flight on 26 June 1970 to Squires Gate, Blackpool. The name 'Just Jane', after a 1940s newspaper cartoon character, was applied around 1990. It is a genuine Lancaster with a real history — just not this airfield's history, and not a combat one.

The airfield is open to the public as the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, East Kirkby Airfield, near Spilsby, Lincolnshire PE23 4DE, signposted just outside East Kirkby village on the A155. The prices and times below were taken from the museum's own website in August 2026 and will date: check before travelling. The museum opens Tuesday to Saturday all year round except for the Christmas period, and is closed on Sundays and Mondays, apart from some bank holiday Mondays when there are events. Summer hours, from Easter to late October, are 09:30 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:00; winter hours are 10:00 to 16:00 with last entry at 15:00. Admission is £13.50 for adults aged 16 and over, £12.00 for seniors over 60, for Armed Forces and for disabled visitors, £5.50 for children aged 6 to 15 and £4.50 for each additional child, free for under-sixes, and £34.00 for a family of two adults and two children; a carer accompanying a disabled visitor is admitted free on proof. There is a cafe, the NAAFI. Dogs are allowed on site if kept on a short lead, and the cafe has dog-friendly seating. The Lancaster taxi rides are a separate experience, expensively and separately booked, and are not included in admission: a standard tail-down taxi ride was £445.00 for 2026, with 2027 vouchers at £455.00. The whole experience runs about 45 minutes, of which the taxi run itself is roughly 15, and includes a safety briefing, a tour of the aircraft and a certificate signed by the pilot; passengers ride in the rear turret, the mid-upper turret, the wireless operator's seat or the bomb aimer's position. Standard runs are usually on public holidays and some Saturdays, occasionally midweek, within a taxi season that runs from March to November. Solo riders must be 18 or over, and under-18s need one accompanying adult each, which uses up seats. The museum asks bookers to watch its accessibility video first, and that is the honest constraint: getting into a Lancaster means climbing over the main spar. Be realistic about the working side of the site. NX611 is under restoration to airworthy condition, a project the museum estimates at £4 million, funded from admissions, donations and taxi rides, with the aircraft kept publicly accessible throughout as what the centre calls a people's memorial to Bomber Command. At the last published update, dated 17 July 2026, new wing spar booms were being manufactured — the most technically demanding single part of the job — and the Wings Fund had raised more than £103,900 towards a £500,000 target for them. No return-to-flight date has been announced, and none should be assumed. In winter the aircraft is opened up for work and the centre sells restoration tours instead of taxi rides. Getting there needs a car in practice. Spilsby is about ten minutes away, Skegness about thirty and Lincoln about an hour; an hourly bus between Lincoln and Skegness stops at Spilsby, and the nearest railway stations are Lincoln, Boston, Skegness and Thorpe Culvert, so a taxi from Spilsby or Skegness is the usual last leg. The control tower, listed Grade II, is the centrepiece and can be visited. For family research rather than a day out, the two squadrons' Operations Record Books are held at The National Archives at Kew in series AIR 27, and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database gives graves, ages and next of kin free of charge; the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln also maintains a free public losses database. One last thing worth knowing before you go: this is a memorial at least as much as a museum, built by two brothers for a third, and the roll of the dead is the point of the place rather than its backdrop.