75th Anniversary of VE Day

By this time of year local Chilmington resident, Ian Wolverson, would be racing about organising for Great Chart and all Ashfordians to come together on VE Day; not just any day of remembrance, but this year being the 75th Anniversary of VE Day, it was sure to be special. In fact, the day to celebrate was moved from 4th May to 8th May in order that we could recognise the exact day of the 75th Anniversary of VE Day – and to remember those who gave their lives for us in that terrible conflict.

The current restrictions meant the events had to be abandoned. The RAF were to be present in considerable numbers, the local schools were to have their own service on 7th in addition to other events.

Ian and everyone involved hopes that by the time we reach Remembrance Sunday, on 8th November, we will be in a position to incorporate much of the abandoned VE Day programme into that traditional event.

But we should not let Friday pass unrecognised. Please watch the videos here which would have been shown at St Mary’s Church in Great Chart from Friday through Sunday. Please take a moment to remember all those lives that were lost in WWII, lost in the name of giving us the freedom we enjoy today.

Videos by Great Chart Remembers. The following text paints some of the picture during those harrowing days.

RAF Ashford in World War II

As the Allies started their planning for D-Day and beyond it was clear that, when the armies advanced across Europe, they would need immediate air support. In order to achieve this there needed to be a fast method of continuously creating airfields just behind the advancing troops. They were to be known as Advance Landing Grounds – ALGs.

During the summer of 1943 a test site for ALGs was built at Chilmington Green – RAF Ashford. The first experiments were ready to test by late summer. RAF and RCAF surveillance squadrons arrived. The RAF spitfires only stayed a few days as the runways filled with deep puddles causing their undercarriages to collapse. The RCAF 414 Squadron Mustangs struggled on for two months, during which time they lost three officers during missions.

In the winter of 1943/1944 the site was rebuilt and in early April 1944 a large contingent of USAAF fighter bombers (P47 Thunderbolts) arrived. The new-build format runways worked – and over 80 American planes flew thousands of missions prior to, during and after D-Day. At the end of July the first ALGs in France started to appear and the Americans left – having lost 21 officers on missions across the Channel.

In mid August an RAF meteor jet attempted and emergency landing at the airfield and crashed during approach. The first recorded RAF fatality of a jet aircraft on active service.

In September 1944 the airfield was rapidly demolished to return the area for agricultural use.

Great Chart has erected memorials to the officers and to the RAF engineers who built the airfield and who suffered 15 servicemen lost when their camp was bombed in May 1944. A full description of these events are on display in the Memorial Corner of St Mary’s Great Chart.