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A landscape that tells a story quietly...
A surviving section of taxiway. There were hardstandings and a huge hangar here, and for a few short months 67 years ago, the bustle of activity and the roar of aircraft engines. All is still now.
The footprints left in the concrete by the young engineers from America, in 1942. You can place your feet in them, stand where they stood and wonder what they saw all those years ago, and what their futures held, and where they are today.
This track that runs across the fields once carried the aircrew from the briefing room to the waiting planes in columns of Jeeps and trucks, and at the end of missions, long forgotten tragedies passed back the other way, to the hospital and mortuary which lay beyond the trees. Now the peace is broken only by farm machinery, riders, and occasional walkers.
Dusk falling over a small remaining section of taxiway, cut down to the width of a farm track ahead, and all gone behind. Twin engined B26 bombers used to queue here in line, awaiting their turn, as in March 1945 did the tugs and gliders carrying apprehensive young men to their fates in Operation Varsity, the Rhine Crossings.
A surviving section of taxiway. There were hardstandings and a huge hangar here, and for a few short months 67 years ago, the bustle of activity and the roar of aircraft engines. All is still now.
The footprints left in the concrete by the young engineers from America, in 1942. You can place your feet in them, stand where they stood and wonder what they saw all those years ago, and what their futures held, and where they are today.
This track that runs across the fields once carried the aircrew from the briefing room to the waiting planes in columns of Jeeps and trucks, and at the end of missions, long forgotten tragedies passed back the other way, to the hospital and mortuary which lay beyond the trees. Now the peace is broken only by farm machinery, riders, and occasional walkers.
Dusk falling over a small remaining section of taxiway, cut down to the width of a farm track ahead, and all gone behind. Twin engined B26 bombers used to queue here in line, awaiting their turn, as in March 1945 did the tugs and gliders carrying apprehensive young men to their fates in Operation Varsity, the Rhine Crossings.
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