RAF Kenley
 

A couple of days ago I had a great time wandering around the remnants of the BOB airfield RAF Kenley

A classic image of the luftwaffe "Hardest Day Raid"

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...Kenley1940.jpg

That same revetment today:

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ley2012jpg.jpg

Wow! What a perspective, looking at the wartime photo, then your recent one! Much is gone, of course, but the revetment looks quite intact, if overgrown a bit.

Thanks for posting this.

Nice pics Ivan!

Hard to make out what the a/c is in the upper shot. Do you know?

Snapper if you have Google Earth, Kenley aerodrome is still in use and a lot of the old revetments are still visible. The street views give a good impression of things too, but from just outside the airfield. :)

From reading Alfred Price's "The hardest day" the top photo was doctored by the Germans to appear in their propaganda magazine Der Adler by adding "bomb bursts":

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k3...0-page-001.jpg

The aircraft is a 64 Sqn Spitfire. Just think who's footsteps you might be standing in Ivan...thanks for sharing!

Thanks Typhoon, but I meant the aircraft taking the photo. I think I can recognise a Spitty by now :D

Ahh, t'was a Dornier Do17Z of 9./KG76 which Staffel was attacking at low level, 18 August 1940. :grin: (Sorry, it's 2.31 am here and I'm just finishing a major assignment.)

S!

Rolf von Pebal in his overflying Dornier Do-17Z took the pic. Says so in the pic description.

Yes, yes thankyou chaps, I saw! I saw! :lol:

It's interesting to see that such low level attacks took place.

"The hardest day" is a must to read. It's only 100 pages long and tell every major events during one single day in the BoB campaign. It has stunning documentation and pictures (like this one).

The KG76 low level attack on Kenley has always fascinated me. Must have been a site to see, low level Do17's hedge hopping over Kent. If it was flyable in CoD I doubt I would fly anything else.

Agree completely. Recommended.

There is a sequence of photos in the book taken from one of the Dorniers - you see them approaching the English coast flying just feet above the sea, then heading inland, one photo shows people running in panic in a town, then the famous photo at Kenley.

Hmmm, is the wartime picture faked? I have it on good authority elsewhere in this forum that vulching was not done on RAF airfields! :-P

The problem was the slack German moderators - they allowed their gamers to get away with anything during the 1940s. ;)

Aha! :-P

You can find a historical recreation of RAF Kenley for COD HERE ... You're welcome :)

Something you don't see in Google earth is that kenley is built on the top of a hill. When walking around the perimeter track and looking in towards the centre of the field you can only see about a third of the way across. The remaining 2/3 lies on the downslope and cant be seen.