My objective on my first afternoon in Woodhall Spa was to find the site of the old Woodall Spa Airfield and then hopefully some evidence about Christie and Flaherty. It was not to be so.

 My route started at  The Petwood hotel, more specifically from within the Dambusters’ Bar, a small bar / museum filled with memorabilia. It is only a very short ride to the town centre, where there is a memorial to that famous raid in May 1943.

Heading out of town you pass a quarry on the left hand side. This is the old site of the Woodhall Spa Airfield. Just past this is the Thorpe Park Visitors Centre.

The centre was formerly part of No.1 Communal Site, RAF Woodhall Spa, and was Built in 1940 with a planned life span of only 10 years!. The site included the Officers and Sergeants Messes, Airmen’s Dining Halls and the NAAFI building, together with Ration Store, Latrines and Ablution Block.  Only the Airmens’s Dining Halls, the NAAFI, Ablution Block and Ration Store are within the Centre’s boundary.

The Thorpe Camp Preservation Group established the Visitor Centre in 1988 to commemorate those Airmen who flew from the airfield in World War II.

  97, 619, 617 (Dambusters) and 627 Squadrons were based at RAF Woodhall Spa.

Conningsby is a small town and the home of a large RAF Base. The town survives around the base, even the local school is called the Barnes Wallis Academy . RAF Conningsby is currently  the Royal Air Force’s Southern Typhoon Main Operating Base (MOB), home to two front line, combat ready squadrons – 3(Fighter) Squadron and XI Squadron, the Typhoon OCU, 29 (Reserve) Squadron, and 41 (Reserve) Test & Evaluation Squadron, which comprises both Typhoon and Tornado elements.

Conningsby also hosts the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

Returning to Woodhall Spa I passed The Kinema – evidently known during the war as The Flicks in the Sticks. Also in this area were a large number of bomb storage buildings.