Contributor: marc

Living at RAF Beaulieu After World War 2

After the Second World War, some military accommodation left over on the New Forest airfields was turned over to the council to help with a housing shortage.

Not only had bombing destroyed thousands of homes, but there was also a post-war baby boom, lack of materials and funding for new builds, plus men returning from the war with no homes to come back to.

RAF Beaulieu was no different. There were Nissen Huts and Handcraft Huts available for young families, many of whom were those of servicemen returning from the war.

One such family was that of William Phillips and his wife Mary.

In 1948 they moved into a hut on RAF Beaulieu’s Site 6, paying 8 shillings a week in rent. Their accommodation was located to the northern side of what today is known as Roundhill Campsite.

In 1949, William and Mary, plus their two young children were moved from Beaulieu Airfield to Setley to live on the ex-POW camp. The council had taken over the camp and converted the huts for civilian use, putting in baths and toilets.

In 2021, William was kind enough to share his personal memories of life living as a young family in the huts at RAF Beaulieu.

Here is a small selection of his memories.

“There were quite a few families living in the site. All young, mainly ex-service people. I did not hear anyone complaining of the hardship of living in a hut. They were probably thinking how lucky they were in surviving the war.”

“Our hut was on the edge of the site. The accommodation in the huts were two bedrooms and a living room combined with the kitchen. It was really hard going in those days. No fridge, no washing machine, only a coal range for cooking.  Our toilet was in a block, and I didn’t like that arrangement too much.”

“The only heating was an old fashioned coal range, not an ideal situation but we were happy to be together after getting de-mobbed from the army.”

“The floor was concrete and did not have any covering. We managed to buy some roofing felt which we used as lino and then painted it with some special floor paint. It did the job and was better than nothing.”

Read the full account

You can read the full account of William and Mary’s time living on the RAF Beaulieu Airfield on the following link:

The above link is part of an independent on-going project to document RAF Beaulieu’s history. The findings will also be placed onto the New Forest Knowledge portal, but most of the time will appear first and with more detail on the independent RAF Beaulieu History Project website.

 

 

RAF Beaulieu’s Shooting-In Butt: aka the Hump or Firing Mound

If you are driving on the B3054 from Hatchett Pond towards Lymington, you might see what appears to a mound or hump or earth on the heathland. It’s on your right-hand side about 800 metres past the entrance to the Beaulieu Heath car park.

It’s easy to recognise as it’s covered in gorse bush. You can also see sandy gravel tracks going up it on all sides where people walk up. It is often mistaken as being a barrow, which was a Bronze Age burial mound, also known as a Tumulus.

However, the origins of this mound of earth and small hill are a lot more modern, dating back to 1944 when the World War 2 airfield was in operation on the land.

It’s actually the RAF Beaulieu shooting-in butt. It was made by digging out and piling earth and gravel into the mound you see today. Planes would then taxi into one of the hardstanding areas away from the runway perimeters and fire their guns into it.

The purpose of this exercise was to let the pilots test their weapons for accuracy and calibration before a mission.

During winter and wet months, the bowl that sits behind the mound fills with water to create a pond. This is also likely to be man-made, being where a lot of the earth and gravel would have been dug out for to create the shooting-in butt.

For more information and photos including a video of how it worked, you can read more on the RAF Beaulieu blog. This is an independent website developed by a local passionate about the airfield’s history.

The AFEE Parachute Drop Zone “T” Letter at East Boldre

From late 1945 through to 1950, the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment (AFEE) worked on the site of the RAF Beaulieu Airfield, testing new aircraft and parachute drops. For parachute testing they would take off in plane from the WW2 runways and then drop over the road on the site of the old WW1 airfield at East Boldre.

To help the parachutists know where to land on the East Boldre heathland, a large capital T-shaped letter was scored into the earth to a few inches deep, and filled with white pebbles and gravel. This meant the AFEE men had a target to aim for.

In 2021 you can still just about make out the T-shape in the earth as you can see from the photo.

For more detail and photos, please visit https://rafbeaulieu.co.uk/t-shaped-drop-zone-target-afee/ – this is a website dedicated to documenting the history of the Beaulieu Airfields.