OT:UK RAF airfields mined 1939-1945 ?????

[Jethro_uk]

(Story below)

following this news, I ran into a couple of people claiming it could have been a UK planted bomb "in case of invasion" ... immediately sparking my bullshit detector.

Quite aside from the risky procedure of placing high explosives where our own aircraft (themselves laden with HEs) were taking off and landing which I doubt anyway, surely all such measures were quickly decommissioned after the end of the war ?

Given how much work went into the UKs wartime defences, it's quite remarkable how little remains.

Can any posters here confirm or refute my scepticism that while scorched earth is a valid military practice, the RAF mining it's own airfields would not have made sense during WW2 ?

An unexploded World War Two bomb has been found on a disused airfield planned to be used as a lorry park in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

The bomb was found earlier at Manston Airport, Kent, and police and army bomb disposal experts were called in.

[Brian Reay]

Explosives were laid to destroy at least some runways in Kent, including at Rochester. They've been 'found' on a few occasions I can recall, including a Rochester- a bit worrying as I took off and landed there numerous times when training and in the company aircraft.

I don't think Rochester was used operationally but they did build aircraft there and, I assume, flew them out. The area was bombed, including the nearby Fort Bridgewoods (now gone), a radio interception station- although that was probably a 'stray' intended for the factory.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It could easily have been one that got bombed, and buried beyond retreival and the people who knew where it was were killed and the paperwork burned in a raid.

Wars are fairly disorganised.

[Jethro_uk]

While generally true, it's amazing how much administration was undertaken and survived. The program a couple of years back where they had records of individual bombs falling cross referenced with the Luftwaffe flights that dropped them (or so they said ...). Also the records around the manufacture, issue and recall (or not !) of firearms.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I read a book by te guy that wrote the Flashman series George Mcdonald Fraser?

Her recounted his wartimne experienecs in the far east. The official account of the campauign said a couple of things which conrtradicted his direct experience. The one I remember was the use a rather unusal weapon of which there was no record of being in that theatre at ALL

[Brian-Gaff]

Surely, they would easily have had time to just blow them up in any case why plant mines unless they absolutely knew the only aircraft landing were enemy ones. I believe that was used in some parts of Europe by fleeing military to make it hard for the Germans, but here? Brian

[Jethro_uk]

I must admit, the idea of a buried squadron of Spitfires somewhere out east stretched my credulity ....

[Jethro_uk]

Sort of chiming with my thinking. I'm not disputing the fact that armies deliberately sabotage/booby trap things on their own side - particularly in retreat.

However the Kent airfields were never under threat of *immediate* occupation so lacing the ground with explosives seems a bit far-fetched. More the sort of story you'd want the enemy to believe (easily achieved by telling the locals it's what was done ....).

I know there's truth in the auxiliary units that were tasked with going to ground in secret bunkers to conduct a guerilla war-until-killed (starting with assassinating the local top brass ....).

[The Natural Philosopher]

There probably is something like that tho.

All sorts of stuff gor abandined in retreats

I mean look at the hordes of saxon gold we find - someone buried it and never came back...

[Roger Hayter]

Apart from Occam's razor suggesting it was one of very many German bombs dropped on British airfields, there seem no reason why Britsh booby trap bombs, or demolition bombs, should have been put in an aerial bomb casings

[Jethro_uk]

A couple of finds ... you're (sadly) not tripping over them everywhere.

I guess once an army is retreating it's not only lost the need for the heavy stuff, but it's a damn liability trying to take it with you.

But none of that applies in *Kent* 1939-1945. Not only was Britain never invaded, the risk subsided after the Germans implemented Barbarossa.

In the absence of credible documentation, I maintain a scepticism that there are caches of high explosive slowly decaying into instability below the airfields of England.

[Jethro_uk]

Not having seen the device in question, I can't speak to that.

[charles]

Opersation Sea Lion?

[Jethro_uk]

Hardly a lightening strike - and it needed air supremacy first.

I know the A2 was fortified (thanks to a Time Team) with tank traps and the like.

[The Natural Philosopher]

teh article I read claimed it was not in an aerial bomb casing - it was a pipe bomb

[Jethro_uk]

IED :)

[Roger Hayter]

If it was made in a munitions factory then it was not improvises.

[nothanks]

I know of one airfield (and I think a couple more, but am slight less certain) where demolition explosives were found underneath the runway when it was being repaired. You will find this interesting, I think:

[Tim Streater]

Well there is that ship in the Thames estuary.

[Jethro_uk]

Was it put there deliberately to trouble any invasion ?