Wartime airfield remembers with music, frocks and men in uniform

A wave of nostalgia took wing over a corner of West Devon when families, military enthusiasts and well-dressed ladies in polka dot dresses took part in a retro weekend.

The annual RAF Harrowbeer 1940s Weekend, August 22-23, attracted visitors of all ages to indulge in a look-back at the fashion, music, dance, transport and, overwhelmingly, the military aspects of a bygone era.

And the Saturday morning saw a solemn service to remember the 72 men who died flying from the Yelverton airfield during World War Two.

The service, at the Airfield Heritage Trust memorial, marked the 85th anniversary of the airfield, set up in the dark days of the war to allow Spitfires and other fighter planes take off on sorties over Nazi-occupied France.

Organisers Stephen and Claire Fryer dressed in wartime RAF uniform for the occasion.

Stephen led the remembrance service. “It was difficult for many attending to hold back their emotions as we paid tribute to those based at Harrowbeer who gave their lives fighting for their country,” he said. “It didn’t seem so long ago for a lot of those at the service.”

The service saw small crosses laid at the memorial by Air Cadet squadrons and members of the public, a one-minute silence and three buglers playing the Last Post and Reveille.

Claire and others also read poems of reflection with 15 Royal British Legion Standards in attendance.

The service was part of the wider 1940s Weekend, which saw the airfield transformed into a military encampment with dozens of khaki-coloured tents manned by enthusiasts dressed in a variety of armed forces uniforms (including German and US).

Meanwhile, a swing band set the atmosphere, interspersed with the ear-shattering sound of a standalone aero-engine being fired up, while gleaming classic cars joined a rally next to camouflaged wartime Jeeps and other fighting vehicles.

Among those enjoying the vibe were Ginny Murphy and her daughter Mila, six, both in period costume. Ginny, of Cattedown in Plymouth, was dressed in Land Army uniform.

She said: “I feel like I was born in the wrong era. I like everything in the 1940s style, everything vintage. Whenever we have the opportunity to get involved we do.”

Re-enactor Nickie Bessant had travelled from Andover, Hampshire, to tell the story of the German Red Cross tending to casualties, alongside other re-enactors.

She stressed that they were telling the story of the ordinary German soldier.

She said: “Most German soldiers had much less say in whether they went than we did. It is about the history and feeling part of it. People ask why we do it but it is to give people the other side. The amount of times people say ‘I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

Martin Elford, from Plymouth, runs the German battle re-enactment group, was at the event.

He said: “It is an educational process. The word Nazi is not who I am, I’m a German soldier. If I don’t fight, they’d close my business down, send my family to concentration camps.. Not all Germans were Nazis. Mechanisation and tactics, that is what we explain. The Germans were successful in the early years of the war.”

Susan Mason was selling vintage frocks, some of her own making. She was making a donation to the trust which runs the airfield, in memory of the air crew who lost their lives flying from this airfield during the Second World War. “We really must try and keep it going, because of all the fellas that died. it is important that they are remembered.”