RAF Holmsley South

 

At the corner of Holmsley enclosure, easy to overlook as you pass, are these unassuming earthwork features which were once the site of serious and dangerous work in the pursuit of victory; they're all that remains of RAF Holmsley Souths' bomb store. Bomb store sounds quite straight forward, but there was more to it than that, the bombs required preparing for use and strict procedures needed following. The bombs went on a journey. The photo above is of one of the two main storage areas that housed the bodies and separately the tail units of the bombs which run at 90 degrees around the corner of Holmsley enclosure. From here a trackway along which the bomb trains ran, travelling back and forth between store and planes parked on the dispersals. By the side of the trackway were a series of stations, brick built loading bays, smoke bomb and small bomb stores, component stores and finally the fusing point, the last stop before the bomb ready store where prepared bombs waited to be taken to the planes; all of these sites had associated trackways, nissen huts, blast walls and such like. Sadly as with other Second World War airfields in the forest, and short-sightedly in my opinion, the physical remains of RAF Holmsley South were viewed as having no historic/archaeological value and subsequently over the years, beyond a short section of Runway, some perimeter track and some dispersal pads,  all have been destroyed. Criminal really.