Six Word Photo Story Monthly Challenge: “Statues”
As propellers turn, we remember them.
Along a by-way close to where I live, stands a eight foot high triple sculpture made of 15mm steel, left to rust. Entering the bend in the narrow country road and seeing the seven determined airmen seem to stride towards me, never fails to impress.
This is the memorial, erected in 2009, to 158 Squadron of Royal Air Force Lissett Station situated two miles from the Yorkshire coast. The land had been requisitioned in 1940 from the farming family which still owns it, but was not made operational until 1943 because it was hemmed in by two roads and a deep land-drain. This is not an ideal configuration when coaxing a crippled aeroplane home in blackout conditions during notorious Yorkshire winter weather.
But, as the Brits say, needs must. The usual “A” frame of three runways was shoe-horned into the space. Buildings were erected to accommodate the 1800 personnel from across the Commonwealth needed to service the Halifax bomber squadron, and their individual crews of seven.
A memorial had been discussed for years, but it wasn’t until the farm was approached by an energy company seeking to erect a dozen wind turbines that funding was negotiated as part of the…
