RAF Duxford – Cambridge Military History

The Eighth Wall Art Conservation Society was an active group in Cambridgeshire in the 1980s. The EWACS, as they styled themselves, saved many works of art from the Second World War from derelict buildings on abandoned airfields. They preserved these works for us today, and while some are available to be viewed by the public, others have been hidden away and forgotten.

At the Bottisham Airfield Museum, one can view a mural of the RMS Queen Mary which was saved by EWACS in the 1980s. The men of the 361^st Fighter Group sailed on the Queen Mary from the United States to England in 1943 and one of the airmen painted an image of the ship directly on the brick walls of one of the airfield’s buildings. This mural eventually found its way to the museum to be appreciated by all.

Originally prepared in 1940 as a satellite of RAF Waterbeach, RAF Bottisham was at first a grass relief field for the Cambridge based de Havilland Tiger Moths of No.22 Elementary Flying Training School. As the war went on, several other RAF aircraft would fly from the field which gradually grew and expanded. In 1943, Bottisham was turned over to the U.S. Army Air Forces’ 361^st Fighter Group. The 361^st Fighter Group’s squadrons first flew the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt but transitioned to the North American P-51 Mustang in May 1944. The fighters from the 361^st Fighter Group, recognizable with their yellow painted engine cowlings, escorted the bombers of the 8^th Air Force to their targets in occupied Europe, including the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 303^rd Bomb Group based at RAF Molesworth.

This may seem a winding thread: the EWACS, RAF Bottisham, the 361^st Fighter Group, and RAF Molesworth – but in the March 1983, the EWACS volunteers, supported by U.S. airmen stationed in the area, rescued several paintings from the old enlisted men’s club at RAF Bottisham before the building’s demolition. At the time, the Bottisham Airfield Museum did not exist and these volunteer conservators sought out a home for this saved art and turned to a growing U.S. Air Force base in the area: RAF Molesworth.

At Molesworth, in a small break room, the EWACS installed three saved pieces of wall art from RAF Bottisham: a mural of a B-17 with a Messerschmitt Bf-109 diving in pursuit, two glasses of wine coming together in a cheer, and a slogan painted in cursive. The slogan, painted across the bricks reads: “Here’s a toast to those who love the vastness of the sky.” Sadly, these murals can only be seen regularly by the men and women stationed at RAF Molesworth as part of the U.S. Visiting Forces and are not regularly available to the public.

One of EWACS saved wall paintings ended up at the Imperial War Museum branch at RAF Duxford in Cambridgeshire. At Duxford, the wall mural “Poddington Big Picture” is displayed in Hangar No. 3, it displays a expertly detailed B-17 from the 92^nd Bomb Group which flew from RAF Podington in Bedfordshire. One of the few signed pieces of wall art, we know the “Poddington Big Picture” was painted by George C. Waldschmidt. A few additional saved murals were shipped to the 8^th Air Force Museum at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, USA. Others are dispersed in museums and displayed throughout East Anglia.

While it is a pity that these beautiful murals at RAF Molesworth are not available for the public to view, we are thankful for the volunteers of the EWACS who worked to save and conserve these beautiful pieces of Cambridgeshire’s aviation history almost forty years ago. In 1983, Dick Nimmo, Bill Espie, and Brian Cook, all volunteers with EWACS removed and brought these works of art to RAF Molesworth before the derelict enlisted club at RAF Bottisham was demolished. We owe them a debt.

To read more about wall art from the Second World War: https://heritagecalling.com/2019/05/17/war-art-military-and-civilian-murals-from-the-second-world-war/

The Guardian published an article in May 2014 regarding USAAF art from the war with some excellent pictures: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/may/17/art-usa

The Airfield Museum at RAF Bottisham houses the mural of the Queen Mary and many other fascinating items, for more information about the museum: https://www.bottishamairfieldmuseum.org.uk/

To learn more about the USAAF at RAF Bottisham during the Second World War, visit: https://www.americanairmuseum.com/archive/place/bottisham

For more information on RAF Molesworth, visit: https://www.americanairmuseum.com/archive/place/molesworth

For more information on RAF Waterbeach’s museum, which is certainly worth a visit: http://www.waterbeachmilitarymuseum.org.uk/index.html

For the murals at the 8^th Air Force Museum in Louisiana, a few photos are available at their website: https://8afmuseum.com/

MK1 Supermarine Spitfire P9374 in flight over Cambridgeshire in 2015. © BNPS

On May 24, 1940 a Dornier 17-Z bomber got a lucky hit on a MK1 Supermarine Spitfire P9374 during an air battle over the beaches of Dunkirk. The MK1 Spitfire, flown by Flying Officer Peter Cazenove had taken off from RAF Croydon and flown over northern France to support the fighting on the beaches of Dunkirk. The Dornier brought the Spitfire down with a single bullet, which then crash-landed gear-up on the beaches near Calais. Uninjured, Flying Officer Cazenove left the aeroplane and walked to Calais where he joined a British unit fighting in the waning days of the Battle of France. Eventually he was captured and made a POW, ending up in Stalag Luft III in eastern Germany and becoming involved in the Great Escape. Flying Officer Cazenove survived the War. The Spitfire; however, stayed on the beaches of Dunkirk along with so much British military kit abandoned in the evacuation. Remarkably, a picture survives of two German servicemen sitting on the wreckage of P9374, half buried in the sand.

MK1 Spitfire P9374 on the beaches of Dunkirk in Spring 1940 with two German servicemen on her fuselage. © BNPS.

Flying Officer Peter Cazenove in 1940. © Mark One Partners.

Eventually the tides coming in and out over Dunkirk buried the aeroplane where it was preserved for the next several decades until September 1980 when the fighter appeared back above the sands. Lovingly restored and reassembled by experts and now at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, the Spitfire is now one of only two flying MK1 Spitfires in their original specifications (there are many other flying Spitfires of different variants).

MKI Supermarine Spitfire P9374's cockpit. Photograph taken at IWM Duxford, Cambridgeshire, 2015. © Getty Images. — MKI Supermarine Spitfire P9374’s cockpit. Photograph taken at IWM Duxford, Cambridgeshire, 2015. © Getty Images.

MK 1 Spitfire P9374 was built in 1939. Its Merlin III engine was completed at the Rolls-Royce Factory in Derby on October 27, 1939. The aeroplane had only 32 hours of flying time when it was brought down over France. It was one of the renowned No. 92 Squadron’s fighters based at RAF Croydon in March 1940.

MK1 Supermarine Spitfire P9374 in flight over Cambridgeshire in 2015. © John Dibbs, SWNS.com.

Amazingly, this aeroplane is going on sale. On July 9, 2015 at Christie’s in London, P9374 will go on sale and is expected to fetch between £2- £2.5 million. The proceeds of the sale will be shared between two charities – the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund and Panthera Corporation, a wildlife conservation charity Mr Thomas Kaplan and his wife, Ms Dafna Kaplan, founded in 2006. Mr Kaplan, an American billionaire investor who is a world renowned conservationist, art collector, and Oxfordian, is the generous individual behind the sale. The second flying MK1 Spitfire in the world was also restored by Mr Kaplan’s experts. Numbered N3200, he has generously donated the MK1 Spitfire to the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, where it often flies and is available to all visitors to admire.

One of the greatest military aviation sites in the World is the Imperial War Museum, Duxford. Located off the M11, south of Cambridge, on the site of historic RAF Duxford. http://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-duxford