WWII buildings between Yaxley And Holme

Hi,

Newbie member here so apologies if this is in the wrong place.

I met the guys running the Airfield Research Group roadshow today at Cockpitfest and signed up to the group.

While we were talking there was mention of some WWII style buildings visible from the road between Yaxley and Holme. These could possibly be part of the large OSS packing operation which was based at Holmewood Hall. Various equipment and arms were packed and prepared ready to be air dropped before being shipped over to station 179 Harrington. These were then airdropped into europe by B24 Liberator aircraft in what was known as Operation Carpetbagger.

Cheers,

Mike

Hi Mike

Can you provide a flashearth or google location link to the buildings in question?

there is (so I'm told) still a lot of the buildings left in Holme Wood, it was called the 'area H' complex apparently....

below is the 1945 aerial pic which shows the site before all the trees covered it.



The entrance is still there and used as the entrance to the lodge house in north park on Hod Fen drove.

Holmewood Crescent is built on most of the camp.

there is a wealth of information on the operation at the Holmewood Hall website.
www.holmewoodhall.co.uk/history

www.flashearth.com/?lat=52.476105&lon=-0...92&z=16&r=0&src="msl"

Hi,

That's a great link, somehow missed that one as I was looking up the details.

I've had a look on google maps to try and identify the buildings the guys metioned at the weekend but havent been able to find them. I'll take a quick trip over to Holme at the weekend and see if I can spot them. It's possible that it was past Holme as the guys said they were on their way to Upwood so possibly Conington airfield (RAF Glatton) home to the US 457th bomb group.

Cheers,

Mike

if he was going via Ramsey Heights could he have seen the back of Raf Upwood?

Its a really interesting area you ave the POW sites (Sawtry is now the fuel bunker I think?) and you have the hidden rail yard at Holmewood too.

Hi All,

We finally got time to head over to Holme Woods to see what remains of the OSS Area H site at Holmewood Hall. There are still the remains of quite a few buildings out in the woods and the road system that served them. These would appear to be the hardened bomb and incendiary storage buildings. There is only building that still retains it's roof. The buildings are of red brick construction with double walls with a cavity in the middle filled with concrete the roof's appear to have been conrcrete. Some still retain the blast walls at what I take to be the entrances.







This building has bee converted for use a chicken shed at some point.



Most of the building are now very overgrown.







One of the buildings has been used to store old trailers one of which appeared to have been converted from an old truck/pickup chassis.

Ironic. The Bomb Store for Glatton airfield was located just a thousand yards to the west.

This film shows the packing facility at Holme www.veoh.com/watch/e52878kmaHMxtw?h1=Operation+Carpetbagger this is a 15 minute film but you'll need to download the veoh web player to watch all of it.

A better quality version of the full film is online HERE .

All the best,
PB