Wymeswold Airfield Battle H.Q.

late april, I found myself on the notts/leics border at Wymeswold, site of a WW2 airfield, and now the place to see (or drive, if you have one) very expensive cars, being driven around by people with lots of points on their licences, on track days.

a remnant from the old airstrip days...

Nice as it was, to hear the great sound of TVR's, lambo's Etc, being screamed around the track, what i came to find was the Battle headquarters (and any other pillboxes,other interesting WW2 stuff)
after a bit of searching, i soon found i was standing near the unmistakable shape of the BHQ cupola,it is to be found at SK5914 2183 according to my Etrex GPS



It looked to be in pretty poor condition, and as i looked for the entrance to the messenger's room, it was obvious that a hell of a lot of water had found it's way in there over the years, the steps could hardly be seen, and were very overgrown with nettles and brambles,
the entrance near the cupola though, was accessible,

view inside the small cupola room, which at one time would have had a view through the narrow observation slit, of the whole triangular airstrip...

the annexe leading to the messengers room was very waterlogged...
cupola entrance to the left, submerged steps to the messngr room to the front...

the best pics i could get of this area, with very wet feet, are below....
entrance...


messenger room...

difficult to get an idea of the size of this room with the water level dominating it. (may have to get/borrow a petrol powered pump if recent explores are anything to go by! i'm not joking)


dissapointing, as i had hoped to see a good BHQ, as always, any comments, corrections, suggestions for better, similar sites are more than welcome! thanks for looking.

Interesting find and top marks for getting soaked,its usually me
That water looks mighty deep.Is the airfield now used as some kind of racetrack or posh car training school??

glad someone else gets wet on explores!
the former 'strip is used for trackdays, corporate stuff, rally training days etc, from what i can gather.

Bloody hell, I've been in quite a few Battle HQ's and I've never seen one with that much water in it.

11008/41 Battle HQ plan.

The reason for their construction on or very near Airfields is to provide the `Station Commander`with a secure location in which he could direct the defence of `his` property via landlines and runners in the event of being attacked by hostile ground forces.

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b

thanks for the plan, Bishop, very interesting, didn't know there would be so much more to it underground, only the top few steps near the messengers room, and the obs/cupola room were above water. where is there a good (dry!) example to have a look at? would love to check one out. cheers.

Battle HQ's

The one at Wellsbourne Airfield is open as a museum and only a few quid.
Alternatively there is a partially flooded one close to Birmingham Airport and a really dry one (rare I think) on the far side of Coventry Airport. I posted on these on 28DL around November last year if you want to have a look...

many thanks, bobblehead

the worst thing is that i keep a drysuit an dry bags in my car at all times, mainly because i dive. but so many times i have gone back to my car and picked it up. some tunnels and mines ive been in ive had to put my camera equipment in drybags an swim through completly flooded rooms with the water over my head. may as well do it properly if your going to do it lol not a good idea sometimes, the stuff we have gone through sometimes is disgusting

There's a battle HQ I'm dying to get into up my way. Unfortunately, the steps down have been filled in with earth.

And the emergency escape hatch has been filled with barbed wire. And dead things. I kid you not.

Unsurprisingly, I think it will be a while before I get up the courage to either start digging, or pulling disgusting corpses out of a hole.

Seahorse said:

Unsurprisingly, I think it will be a while before I get up the courage to either start digging, or pulling disgusting corpses out of a hole.

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Go for it, they will not bite.