Apologies that this is a rambling post but I just figured that I'd share a few thoughts over the demise of another 4-group airfield.
The days of Burn near Selby are numbered despite the fact that it is still an active airfield with a thriving gliding club it will soon be dug up by the corporate might of big business.
Burn is one of the few Yorkshire airfields left with all the three runways still intact. Most of the buildings are gone but a public footpath that winds round the perimeter track means that you can still circumnavigate the peri track used by the lumbering Halifax’s of 578 squadron. It really is a very atmospheric place, gliders circling above and the vast expanse of the airfield around you. It is one of my favourite places for a contemplative walk or Cycle ride... The silent gliders are a fitting peacetime occupant for the old wartime base.
It is such a shame that this is all going to be swallowed up by the corporate machine. With such little regard to those who gave so much 60 years ago.
If my lottery numbers had come-up in time I'd have bought the place and created a park for the locals, opening the main runway for light aircraft and gliders. Restoring one of the frying pan dispersals with a Replica Halifax sitting at the ready in tribute.
On the flip side I except that we have to move on and the proposal to take over Burn is not an ordinary one: The planners plan to bid for the "European Spallation Source" (A giant neutron scattering microscope the length of one of the runways). All very high tech stuff.
http://www.yorkshire-ess.org.uk/index.htm
Yesterday I attended a public display in Selby (It is on again on Saturday). It had quite a flashy presentation about it. I came away with the conclusion that if Burn is going to be ripped up and the gliding club turfed out then it has to be for something as major and world class as this. I tried to suggest to the organisers that it might be fitting to pay some tribute to the flyers from the base, such as name the streets. (One pilot did get the VC from Burn after all for example). But I don't think the organisers understood that, (or who 578 where or what a Halifax was for that matter).
I do get the feeling that this bid is a bit too ambitious and the corporate machine won't get it. (Bids are coming in from all over Europe & I don't think the local residents are too keen on having a neutron microscope in their back yard). The owners will be left with an old airfield that they will end up turning into just another anonymous science/industrial park like several other ex-bases in Yorkshire. The memory of Selby's bomber squadron evaporating in the process. Which in my view would be the worst thing that could happen. You only have to look in Selby Abbey and see the inscription of all the names of the crewmen who never returned from 578sqn operations to realise how much the older generation in Selby thought of their squadron.
Those are my views. It just seems frustrating that no one seems to care about saving just one of the remaining bases from No4 & 6 Groups for future generations to remember how much the crews gave so that we have the freedoms we have today.
If there are any of you out there who know more about the base at Burn I'd be interested to hear from you.
Regards,
Paul..
