Burtonwood Royal Air Force Station - Yearbook (Burtonwood, England)

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ke the Ip to a ickside nd the rive at 1. 1 wel- tonio. I took 1 been swere en and room. embers cessors iooklet reeting r. The as well ut the g, was ind the tcoffee. day to s. d Kelly d large re the hen it r base, PPlIeSy nected uadron a basic erseas. ing the' - pered Omage ic field5 i i52l53' tennis: nWOO ring of troun' an era awling a V W. wwwn ..,,.,..;.....,r..,,,.-t WW ; swam..r.,....,.m1 In I95l Burtonwood won the Third Air Force baseball champion- ship, the U.K. championship, then journeyed over to Germany and won the USAFE championship. ill: 38 :X: THE EAGLES, as they were then labelled, departed Burton- wood to enter the USAFE Tournament with less than one dozen bats and no uniforms. The boys played in blue jeans and dungarees. This did not dampen their enthusiasm. They made the trip to Germany with the hopes of winning; it takes more than pretty uniforms and good bats to win tournaments. This was proved by the tea sippers, as our German-based colleagues called the U.K. visitors. They made a clean sweep, they brought Burtonwood the only USAFE trophy ever won in any sport by a Burtonwood team, but the other athletic squads came remarkably close. In football, the first year Burtonwood fielded a team they won the Third Air Force Championship, the United Kingdom Championship, and were the runners-up for the USAFE Crown. With stars like Jim HPappy Simmons, Lonnie Ward, and Ollie Linborg, the Bullets gridiron machine rolled to victory after victory on the field of play and in the mud holes of England. BURTONWOOD was building a reputation, she was now the most feared base in athletics in Europe. In l952 the Bullets again swept all the opponents in the U.K. conference aside to be the best gridiron squad in Great Britain, only to lose later before a powerful Furstenfeldbruck Air Force Base, Germany, 32-I8. before 35,000 fans in Londonls Wembley Stadium. In I953 the Bullets were downed for the first time in U.K. play with an unexpectedly strong Wethersfield eleven, I3-7, before 6.000 home fans at Burtonwood. Burtonwood proceeded after this point to beat every opponent to cross their path until they met London in November, to whom they lost by 20-6. For the first time in three years the Bullets were not crowned U.K. champions. Revenge, however, was sweet for these Bullets, for on November 2l, I953, before the largest European crowd ever to witness a US football match, saw them smash Wethersfield in their second meeting of the season, 27-0, before 59,000 fans in Dublin, Ireland. Linborg, Simmons, Bob Yates, ran wild in the last game to be played together by this great team. DURING THE PAST SEVEN YEARS Burtonwood has won 47 football games while suffering only l8 defeats. Individual coaches that have appeared on the scene at Burtonwood, but one stands out among all others. That man, Lt. Col. Bill Kenna, led the Burtonwood Bullets to I6 victories and 4 defeats for the I952l53 season. Both times the sacred and coveted USAEF crown eluded him; his teams came second on both occasions. 3K! ilk 3!: It was I957 before Burtonwood won another U.K. title on the gridiron. This time coach iCath Thomas Brown led the underrated Bullets to another title. In boxing, Ralph Paterson, Bill Cherry, Howard Greene won worId-wide Air Force titles for Burtonwood. Never before in the history of the Air Force has any one base ever had three world wide Air Force champions in separate divisions. In addition to this; featherweight Willy Thomas was runner-up in his division in I953. In soccer, Johnny Mulligan, Frank Tollan, Joe OlMalIey led Burtonwood Gunners to the Manchester Wednesday League Title for the first time that an American AF team had beaten the British at their own game. IN BASKETBALL, the Burtonwood Bullets, during the sports era I95Ii53, won the U.K. championship twice, only to lose out in the finals of the U.S.A.F. tourney on the Continent. In track, David Snow will long be remembered as possibly the greatest all-round athlete ever to don the thin clads. Snow ran the high hurdles, the loo yards and 220 yards, and the 440 yards, ran the haIf-mile and the mile. . . . . . Decade In addition, Snow proved to be one of the few American sports car drivers of an ameteur status to win several British and U.S.A.F. sports car rallies. In tennis, Captain David Dozier monopolized the base tennis championship during this era. Though Dozier never won the U.K. championship, he was frequently in the finals. In golf, Captain George Hill Cater Majory was third Air Force champion two years in a row. Hill, the plus 2 handicap golfer. is without a doubt one of the finest US. service golfers to ever walk on the links of a British course. Basketball teams, football teams, tennis squads, golf teams. base- ballers come and go, but no base can hope to dominate the athletic scene like Burtonwood did in I95l, I952, and I953. Civilians Come to Burtonwood The military man has been at Burtonwood off and on since I939. The Americans first arrived at the base in early I942. They were here right through the war and like the period I949 to I958, Burton- wood served as a depot. LIKE MOST DEPOTS in the States, Burtonwood planners were anticipating the use of civilians on a large scale. Labor was already scarce in industrial Lancashire. Industry was going full blast. Labor had to be imported. but Air Force planners had decided to replace the American airmen with United Kingdom civilians, and on a gigantic scale. Labelled operation HNative Son, the new influx of UKC's were supposed to eliminate the high cost of employing the military men. who so often had to bring their families with them. Now Burtonwood had earned, and rightly so, the reputa- tion of being the largest dollar earner in the north of England. Would this new influx of British civilians, employed in all capacities, from a top executive level all the way down to a stock man in the stores, effect the dollar income of Lanca- shire? Hardly, for this was a new era at Burtonwood. Not only were we employing British people for the first time in great numbers, but we were going to spend more money through local purchases and contracts than in any other time in the history of this giant RAF station. 5X: Ill: 3? The time: December, I953. To fill the vacancies that would occur in the absence of the American airmen was a large project undertaken under the guidance of Brigadier General Troup Miller Jr., Commander, NAMA. The Personnel Director, Lt. Colonel Wilfred Kenna, was faced with many problems. One example: There was not enough estab- lished iipermanent Air Ministry British employees available for assignment for such a giant operation. Consequently. the Air Ministry, through the guidance of Mr. Harry C. Redman, then Chief of the British Staff Organization, was authorized to employ ex-RAF equipment officers to fill the gap at executive level. BURTONWOOD needed trained supervisors now. she could not wait. The supplies were in the warehouses; they had to go to all parts of Europe. It was later discovered that some 75 career fields could not be converted from the military to the UKC trainees in the time allotted. The supplies had to be moved, so, during the interim, Burtonwood had both military and UKCis. This continued until the UKCis became accustomed to the American way of doing things. They were trained, and as a result, some 2.500 American military men were declared surplus. They were reassigned to other American bases throughout the world. Burtonwood was now a full fledged depot. She performed maintenance on all types of aircraft, and supplied everything from food to a small second hand on a wrist watch. It was during these months, in early I954, that the famed Header House was constructed. It has been called the laggest ware- house in Europe. alt II: is But not only was NAMA changing from military to civilians, she was acquiring new units. Burtonwood was truly expanding.

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mu 4 14m: 3 magma ff v -F,., 7.7 - -. Decade . . equipment and spares. At least ninety days' t and some Naval supplies, ' h U.S. Air Force and-Army, - SUPPIIES for : siock. All food sold in restaurants, or from tjceecggan wgsrsiryegr post exchange, came from.the Stdates, Withhcth aim fllaown ml 'lk ro ucts, w l . bou ht locally, and mi p . ' 'Of zrzgneitll-lbclllznd. Tghe shops sold, or could get, anythingB thtat 12:;de bnr Sears Roebuck have ever thought of. ThIS was ur on , ' i ' west boom town. , ' - Larsslbl'eosffrjebase-the airmen poured IntoTEhe neabrl'byugsngn ' ' ' ' t. e pu IC t s in search of entertalnmen - llnvlall'lril:gton were amazed to hear that our boys were averad ing L26 per month. itWe accept dollars Signs went up an fhe locals were ready to do business With the Yanks. f The tabloid Daily Mirror reported that teen-age girlsn some 0 them no more than I2, were doing a brisk.busmess picking up American airmen at Manchester's Central Station. 5X: 3? ill: with food, clothing, THE NEWSPAPER, in a haIf-page article bannered Britaintsi' Good Name is in Peril, said armies of young girls met the trains from Burtonwood, the big American air base l6 miles from Manchester. . , ilNo introductions are needed, the Mirror said. HA Hi ya, Joe is enough for any good-natured GI. The peacetime love parade outsmarts anything London staged at wartime Rainbow Corner. HIt is shoddy, shamefulwand shocking. It is sex for sale-a frightening, awful thing of teen-age girls, some no more than l2-waiting nightly in twos and threes. The Mirror said that more than I00 girls drift into Central Station nightly. They sit on benches, opposite the arrival platforms. Military and civilian police are powerless, the Mirror said, because the girls are never caught actually soliciting. The thirror said the girls and their GI dates usually move on to pubs and then to cheap hotels. Capt. George W. Hill, press officer at Burtonwood, said: We are very alive to the problems and are doing everything we can to give the men plenty of entertainment and recreation right here to keep them off theistreets. Ohe way to lteep the boys on-base was to give them better rec- reational fatilities on the installation itself. It wasn't long before well-known entertainers were coming to the base. Among those were Nat 'lKing Cole, Gene Raymond, his wife Jeanette MacDonald, Constance Bennett, The Deep River Boys, The Merry Macs. Allan Jones. Don Cummings, Rochester, Sophie Tucker and many, many more. Athletic teams were formed, da nces heId-the roblem area was met and for the most part solved. P A Time of Expansion Here we go a ain, was th ' wood in early l95gl. The 30tl?rl;xir eD;IPS Of most people at Burton- pot was on the wa o Esgznggftsgidbgund for nearby RAF Station Sealand. Pieoiblleer 2'33: irmen, were pourin into the I' , ' base at a fast I' . H g ' spraw Ing Lancashire were here. c ip until about l2,000 airmen and 9,000 dependents AS ONE MASTER SERGEANT said, 0! . . H . , either eXpansuon or a close-down. This ti ere we go again. It s . me it ha e :35???er rgrllciieglNhtallean Expansion SGEVeral hundiidnbgseonbiizh for USAF w ' runway was lengthEHEd. Sealand was slated o . . . . rk. and warehousmg fatilities were being set up :it Ill: 5X! . The 59th Air De t ' members of the 3'0ctlh Yib-ng extended a . Depot W' mgeglistgeeyngrrgvsd at Southamptorl:g19l'l1e;e:rrrll:;g 2t;nl9t5l1I ose and were greeted b e y a re re ' This group gave th ff , led by Lt. Col. H. Y. Sltgwasftntatlve back aboard the t e o icer personnel a short briefin th ' Wing debarked Cransport the following morning befglr ehn Went . apt. Ralph Miles, chief of the Southar:ptto: 38V: or we..' lihzd;uwmunginn ..,... Detachment, and members of his staff, went all 0 debarkation as pleasant as possible. MEMBERS of the Wing went almost directly from the shi t waiting train, which had been pulled into a siding-in a defksPda warehouse. The coaches had been previously deSignated and tIhe loading went smoothly, which permitted the trains to ar e Warrington pretty much on schedule late Saturday afternoo 36 3? all: ut to make the rive at n. Burtonwood personnel had been preparing a warm wel- come several days for the new Wing from San Antonio Motor transport met them at Bank Quay station and tool; the airmen to their respective sites, where the huts had been aired out, fires started and the bunks made up. Officers were taken to 276 MU officersi quarters. x Dining halls remained open after hoursto feed the airmen and the officers had the evening meal in the Officersl Club dining room. By the time they all gathered in the gym Sunday morning, members of the 30th knew much more about thebase than their predecessors did on their arrival. They had been provided with a 24-page booklet filled with information about the base. AT THE SU NDAY MORNI NG BRIEFING a verbal greeting was extended to the new men by Brig. Gen. Robert C. Oliver. The 59th Wing CG delivered a straightforward address which was well received. t all: :X: 5X: The'inew men couldn't get the wrong impression about the weather at Burtonwood. It rained throughout the briefing, was cold and the wind blew at near gale force; t HOWEVER, the gym had been warmed ahead of time and the PX had a number of mobile snack bars on hand with hot coffee. The PX opened up from I300 to l500 hours that wet Sunday to allow members of the new Wing to make necessary purchases. at 5X: $6 The 30th Wing, which was commanded by Lt. Col. Howard Kelly on its trip overseas, semed pretty well settled by Monday and large numbers of them were seen around Site 6 finding out where the Post Office and other important places were located. The 30th remained at Burtonwood until March, l95l, when it moved to RAF Station Sealand. Sealand, looking more like a university campus than an air base. was iire-opened to the Americans to handle medical supplies. subsistence and other supplies. The Yanks were first conneCted with Sealand during World War I when the famous Eagle Squadron were stationed there. 5x: :x: :x? Eighteen months later the Flintshire base was used 35 i? baSIc training station for persons enlisting in the Air ForceVOV'erseas'. Later still, it returned to its primary mission, that of supPlYmg the USAF in the UK. 0' . d And on the British scene the death of King George V! deprivee America of one of its greatest friends. The entire base Pa'd homag to the King. The year was I952. On the Field 5f Sports d hletic fiel 5 Like a giant 5 ider weavin its web in and out of the at throughout Europe, the Bugrtonwood Athletic Teamsr l95ll52-IS3' -' proved to be as feared as the black widow itself. is ' FROM FOOTBALL To BASEBALL, fro'm golf to tencloci from soccer to swimming, from track: to boxingv the BurtonW teams surpassed all other competitors in Europe. , ' 'n of It was an era of sports. The epoch began 1 the SP? asun- l95l and did not end until the'Buliet footballers WF'e hers - ced on the Burtonwood gridiron in I953! thus end'ng awling of athletic stars that earned world renown follthe 5pm Lancashire base. Here is the record: .,.:v; .Inx , a; FA 441 9 Ah;

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Decade. . . . . t ther Reconnaisance Squad- The initial aSSIgnment of the 53rd I9VV5e3a saw Burtonwood on the ' ber . m Bermuda In Novem , . . C I949, EOCisfeto The Squadron had been operatlng In BermudlapljlnneseWOUId tracing an average of about I2 hurricanes each season. ' out be sent into the center of the hurricane and follow them for ab ' task. H . 7 days to trace the storm 5 ow the famed HurrIcane OPE had changed, for n . Hu-hlt-efs'55vould now be flying triangular patters coverIng about - ' I6 hours a flight. 2.600 miles and averaglngweather observations from the great The were to ma . . northyto be funnelled to all countries In the world. Th: first Commander of the 53rd to be stationed at Burtonwoo was Lt. Colonel Richard D. Stowell. Burtonwoodis Press Relations There is nothing wrong with the Yanks, except they are over: paid, oversexed and overhere and they make damn good news copy. An editor of a famous British newspaper said this In l95l. They made good news copy then, and they still do. . . THE PAPERS have been riddled with offenses commltted In the British Isles ranging from sex to black marketing. Burtonwood's position is very much like that of any other American base In Britain. Servicemen, whether they be British or American. always make news copy. Frequently, even if not servicemen now but have been in the past, the newspapers often headline a story llEx-Gl commits crime. One of the first big press cases at Burtonwood was labeled the Beauty and the Beast. This case involved a Corporal in the American Air Force stationed at Burtonwood and a l6-year-old chorus girl from Manchester. The case was played widely in the British press; the GI was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years for rape. Mainly due to the way the case was reported in the British press, a wave of protests swept over Burtonwood demanding that the sentence be reduced. or the airman be acquitted altogether. Largely because of the public opinion, this Corporal's case was reviewed and his sentence was reduced considerably. ills ill: Si: We have been involved in some real hum-dingers, ranging in form from Burtonwood to expand to the point where the community could not accommodate them, until in later years, the newspapers were riddled with the persistent rumors that the base was going to close. OF COURSE, the most famous stor about Bu ' closure appeared in The Daily Herald on Mall'ch 28. l957it3vnhvzzotdh: lead story on page one ' - .. . . . ertten b Journalist Paul D ' Gl S to QUIT. Giant Air Base. Y ean. sald, Mr. Dean, in his stor as 30 June, I957 iif this months agoi. thrlocglean hiththe usual haunts to find out the reaction of merc ants. He queried taxi drivers, pub keepers, in dance halls, garages, restaurants, wine stores and even dry cleaning factories and Home, Yanks t0 Uplbase Sttahye'ncry had changed frOm Go The Manchester Evening News, on seeing the story, dispatched a nwood immediately; officials of on 30 June y. quoted a S Sgt. and gave the closing date was the case we would have been gone l8 Though The Her revealed their fle Wood's famous r THIS CASE ald may have looked lik . s . du XIbIIIty and v e omances. ersatIlIty by co concerned a PES'On this story, they vermg one of BurtOn- memb . girl, who was ' er of the U.S. AIr Force who was, at th::tpi$rc1temign :hleaftloclltnd a , a e. The American authorities were doing ever thin in th ' expedite the marriage of the couple. It Wlas a gear-jeilzihgwlfgat: puller that every paper in the country was following. , r Eventually, the airman left the stockade, under escort to meet his future bride. They were married in the Warrin ,ton Registry Office. The newspaper boys had been houndinggthe base, phoning constantly about two hours, trying to findlout the exact date the wedding would take place. Some papers even posted look-outs outside the girl's home in Man- chester Road. When the hour arrived, several of the news. paper boys had been alerted from contacts in Warrington. At the request of the girl, the American authorities had told no one. The party, which included the bride, bridegroom, AP gllard Public Relations Officer and Legal Advisor from Burtonwood, made their way to the Registry Office for the ceremony. One of the requests of the bride was, ul have a very good friend that I want to act as bridesmaid. This bridesmaid had received llspecial permission from the Public Relations Officer and t e okay to take pictures. The bridesmaid was quoted as saying, I m so clumsy that I am not sure just which knob to turn. She turned out to be one of the slickest reporters and photographers in the trade, for this bridesmaid was the Daily Heraldls Margaret Pycroft. Pycroft had an exclusive that Was the envy of every new- paper editor from Southampton to Glasgow; our faces were red. It was the slickest piece of reporting we had ever witnessed. Later. the bride said she did not know this girl, but that she had promised her a set of the wedding pictures for the exclusive story. Another newspaper editor said, ill think we would have given her il00 for the same privilege. But these are only a few of the amusing stories. Flt ill: 3? Last year, Burtonwood won the Ambassadors Award in Com- munity Relations for United States Air Forces Bases in Britain. This was due largely to the efforts of good publicity given by the British press. In summing up, base authorities like to feel that the honorable newspaper people that contact Burtonwood have a cordial relation- ship with the United States Air Force that will continue in the future. . Points of Interest When you speak of Burtonwood as a city with its many fatlllt'esv one doesn't realize just what sort of city we have here until they check with certain people to find the real facts. Very few realize that in the last l0 years the dependentscheol has had over 6,000 students, 49 of which received theIr hlgh school diplomas; that over 800,000 cups of coffee are served by AFEX a year; that in the past l0 years 3,000 British cars have been purchased by Burtonwood people and that over46,800,000telepl10ne calls were made during the same period. . . . the If these figures sound astounding then try to 'PV'S'O . e 48,l36 English guests that have visited the Sle' e servf Club in the last decade. The Skyline Club ayeragesl st parties a year and has had over I,000 dances during the a lo years. 5- In higher education, l0,l02 students have either taken Corhid pondence courses from stateside Universitiestor have been Tariade as students in the University of Maryland during th's eventfu e at Burtonwood. . . l - awling Other Points of interest include the size of this S'gant'c-SPrunwaY Lancashire base. There are l8 miles of roadways; the 1362; nissen is two miles long. Burtonwood has seven hangars. I, This huts, 569 buildings other than nissen huts and warehcglgze: lt-li giant base has 22 warehouses tcovering an area of 3,535. wgc', to these ngures bring the total number of buildings 0 Bum L636 engrossed within l6.85 miles of fencing; The whole of the base covers the amazmg nu acres within this gigantic industrial network. mber of I947I It also has x: