Photos from American Library of Congress archives

Here are some photographs of various (unnamed) British airfield in WWII. If you were following the ''Luftwaffe" thread: I could not find any online images of British airfield taken by the Luftwaffe.

American pilots leaving a briefing and taking the bicycles to their planes: I thought they took trucks (lorries) to the planes!


Building a hangar:


Crane and truck: Some sort of concrete manufactory?


Spraying runway surface: What for?


Pouring concrete: I guess


Building a Nissen hut:


Filling in a runway:

Never seen a hangar like that, would be interested to know what sort!! The spraying i think is to stop the concrete from splintering/ breaking up not sure what substance was used though , and the bicycles were "standard issue" as quoted on the night bomber film !!!

The images from D-8978 show typical British labour and equipment of the time, I would hazard a guess at one of the large Civil engineering Companies like Laing, George Wimpey & Sons or Woodrow.
The US Govt raised many large Engineering (Aviation) Battalions from Civil engineers at home in the USA. Each one sent to the UK to build a specific airfield, At first they used British equipment, but quite soon after arriving, their own equipment came into use fairly quickly. These images do not seem to reflect US units at all, apart from the Canadian Chevrolet in D-8978, although these trucks were in use with McAlpine and Laings at the time. The sprayer is an air compressor, and probably blowing silt out of the expansion joints in the concrete.

Re picture number 2,

Here's are some pictures of similar looking buildings on the Burtonwood Repair Depot (BRD) site at RAF Burtonwood.

www.rafburtonwood.org/brd11a.jpg

www.rafburtonwood.org/brd2.jpg

www.rafburtonwood.org/brd.jpg

www.rafburtonwood.org/brd03.jpg

and there is a picture of similar looking buildings at Langford Lodge here

www.controltowers.co.uk/L/Langford_Lodge.htm

d 8985 if im not mistaken is that the same photo in airfields of the 8th taken at boxted!!

Spot on woodster, It is indeed Boxted, and the Civilians were W & C French Ltd, another of the famous old British civil engineering companies.
I have many private photos of American equipment and personnel from the Aviation Engineering Battalions, but unfortunately I cannot post any of them on the net. The sheer size of the runway laying machines has to be seen to be believed. Some of that equipment already shown in this threads opening post, appears to be small fry in comparison. I suspect that these photos showed finishing work and not the main construction. W & C French had some quite large bits of kit themselves, and much of what was used to build airfields in the 1940's, was still in use up into the mid 1960's on road building work!
Well spotted

Fantastic pics of a facet of wartime you dont normally see, curiously I like the assembling of Nissen huts one best!
Denis I would like to see your pics if you could post them.

Philsfields questions the hangar design, is that not a storage or workshop design?

Hello Paul,
Yes, I suppose copyright would be the reason. In 1946 one of the Engineering (Aviation) Battalions published a 140 page documentary magazine, for want of a better word. This was sent out to vets to keep as a record of their achivements. I was sent a copy a couple of years ago, with the express wish of the sender, that I used it for reference purposes only and not to copy or publish 'electronically' any of the images contained within. I really must honour that wish of the sender.