-
RAF Melton Mowbray
Melton Mowbray is a small market town nestling on the edge of Leicestershire. Famous for its racehorses, pork pies and stilton cheese, and certain buildings being part of the divorce settlement of Anne of Cleves when she managed to pick her way out of her marriage to Henry VIII with her head intact, Melton Mowbray also has a plethora of prominent military installations in the vicinity, both in use and no longer operational. One such place is RAF Melton Mowbray. Now the site of a small industrial centre, a lorry park and occasional Bank Holiday Market, near to and on the old airfield, RAF Melton Mowbray was opened in 1942…
-
The Pacoima Mid-Air Collision
On January 31, 1957, a Douglas DC-7B collided with a United States Air Force Northrop F-89 Scorpion. The DC-7B which was earmarked for delivery to Continental Airlines, took off from the Santa Monica Airport at 10:15 a.m. on its first functional test flight, with a crew of four. Meanwhile, in Palmdale to the north, a pair of two-man F-89J fighter jets took off at 10:50 a.m. on test flights, one that involved a check of their on-board radar equipment. Both jets and the DC-7B were performing their individual tests at an altitude of 25,000 feet over the San Fernando Valley when, at about 11:18 a.m., a high-speed, near-head-on midair collision…
-
Ramstein
We’ve all heard of the German Heavy Metal band Rammstein, I’m sure. Their famous offerings including ‘Ich Will’, ‘Feuer Frei’ and ‘Sonne’. But there’s a story behind their name, and that story is the Ramstein Airshow Disaster. The band initially named Rammstein-Flugschau (Ramstein Airshow- the extra ‘m’ was a spelling mistake which they kept) have since stepped away from the association, claiming the name came from the “ramming stone” of the same name – a large stone doorstop affair found on old gates but the initial addition of the ‘flugschau’ berates that story. But that’s not really the topic for today. In the Summer of 1988, my friends and I…
-
The Night Witches
It was 1941 and the Third Reich seemed unstoppable in its roll across Europe. Hitler and Stalin had a non-aggression pact, but Hitler threw that in the trash and turned his eyes east and invaded the Soviet Union. By November, the German Army was 19 miles from Moscow and the city of Leningrad was under siege. Three million Russians had been taken prisoner and the Soviet Air Force was grounded. Things looked bleak. In desperation, record breaking aviatrix Marina Raskova created an all female regiment to run harassment bombing runs on the Germans. Harassment bombing targets encampments, supply depots and rear base areas. Their constant raids made rest for the…
-
Albert Ball, VC, DSO and 2 Bars, MC – Britain’s Ace Fighter Pilot
Born in Nottingham on the 14th August 1896, Albert Ball was one of three children, two sons and a daughter, of plumber Albert Sr and his wife Harriet (nee Page). Albert Sr was later to elevate his status to that of Lord Mayor of Nottingham and received a knighthood. Young Albert was educated at a variety of schools, Lenton Church school, Grantham Grammar and Nottingham High School before going to Trent College, at the age of 14. Deeply religious, Albert was also fond of all things mechanical and electrical, spending a lot of time in his private retreat in the garden shed, fiddling about with engines and such like. He…
