Bircham Newton came into being in 1916, although building work continued for all of 1917 and much of 1918. The first recorded unit arrived on 28 May 1918. It was planned from the first as a Bomber Training Station because it was big enough to accommodate the heavier aircraft coming into service. Contrariwise, it never had more than grass as runways, as the subsoil was deemed to be too unstable to take tarmac. By 9 November 1918 two V/1500s were ready to bomb Berlin. Poor weather led to a postponement and the Armistice to cancellation. The airfield remained in service until 1965 when it was used as a dispersal site for the trials of the Kestrel VTOL aircraft, which preceded the Harrier. It is now the Construction Industry Training Board's training centre, still standing proud, but dwarfed by the tower cranes of its present owners.

It must be one of the most complete airfields in existence, that has continuously developed from its origins in World War I, and from personal experience, I know it to be an atmospheric place to this day. I suppose its heyday was in World War II when it was mainly used by Coastal Command, but in its time it spanned 20th Century military aviation, and many famous names are associated with it - Collishaw commanded in 1932-1935, and Tedder, Portal, and Gilbert Insall VC commanded squadrons there at various times, and of course the nearby Royal Family used it constantly.

The author, a local man, has done it proud. He has researched exhaustively, and recorded letters and interviews with hundreds of people. There are 150 interesting illustrations, which happily appear in the right places in the text. He has also added impressive lists of everything and everyone that mattered there. And there are some marvelous anecdotes - the Anson trying to land in a gale by flying backwards, and the same plane's dreadful retractable undercarriage. The good news was that it retracted, the bad that it took thousands of turns on a crank handle to achieve this desirable state. I have always heard that daring aviators would flip upside down instead of cranking, and having read the author's description of a Vimy ('the ugliest plane ever built') looping the loop, I believe anything. I read the book with great enjoyment and was left with many thoughts: the losses of Coastal Command were appalling, for seemingly little return (although it is cogently argued that the unseen returns of attacks on Allied shipping that did not take place, cannot be calculated). The use of obsolete aircraft like Swordfish, Albacore and Gladiator (all of which served at Bircham Newton) until the War's end is, with hindsight, inexcusable. And how cold the winters were in both Wars!

I am a great fan of local history like this, and this book is one of the best.