THE HAUNTED TOWER.......

There is a small village called Thorpe Abbots between Norwich and Diss in
the lovely county of Norfolk. This picturesque hamlet was soon to have all
their lives changed when suddenly one morning, several cement laying
machines entered the village with workmen announcing they would be
constructing an airfield on the land surrounding their homes. The old
Farmers that leased their land to the Ministry had said little and so the
gossip was like wildfire as all the shrubbery, trees, plants etc was dug up
leaving the acres all around them looking bare.
Then the work began. The painstaking hard work of levelling off .
They had just 10 weeks to lay the concrete and raise all the necassary
buildings to go with it. Then the locals waited. Gossip never abated at
the little post office or the local pub and even when the first GIs arrived
from America, they still could not understand why all the fuss. Then they
came in their hundreds. Two days of the local railway at Diss being kept
busy with servicemen. Then they were at the site. The 100th Bomb group
that later in years became a living legend in the USAAF also known has
the Bloody Hundredth - because of its appalling and crippling losses of
aircraft and men during a short spell into the war. Often labelled the
'jinx outfit. Over 177 aircraft went missing and some 730 airmen killed.
In 2002, I made a visit to this little village and was pleasantly surprised
to still see concrete posts and some wire fencing skirting the airfield.
In fact the airfield integrated with part of the village. Much of one road
became half the perimeter track. You can still see sections of concrete
bases that held constructions such as tool sheds and fixits. I had left
my car and walked around the long road with a book and map of the
airfield so I could recognise where things were. For instance, north of
the perimeter track the concrete was now used by the farmers bales
but I could see the iron loops that secured the planes. The gutters where
the rain drained and pans where the planes anchored. When I got half
way I saw a huge gap in the hedge and knew that the main runway had
gone into the next field. Then I saw the tower (now a museum) and
some other parts of the runway and so on.
The Tower looked a forlorn testimony standing alone in the wintertime,
now deserted of all that important activity. The windows dark and very
empty. The skies above that were always full, now only with blackening
clouds as a little rain fell making the mood very depressive.
And then, I saw someone. In the left window of the tower breaking up
the dark. Like a small torchlight glowed for a few moments and then
a dark piece of small mass moving away from the glassless opening...
I had thought that someone was caretaking the Tower or had it opened
for that day, maybe for a special visit by one of the veterans(s). So it
did not bother me to walk up the track and come behind the Tower to
satisfy my curiousity. When I came to the metal door painted grey,
I found it firmly locked. I looked around but saw no cars parked in
the car park. Then I felt all alone, indeed after some quick moments
I knew I was. I walked to the front of the Tower and saw no-one. I had
cried out but no one acknowledged. I knew what I saw. I had seen a
lit face and part of a body in that tower and though of enormous interest
to all those volunteers that kept the place in immaculate condition,
no one had been in that Tower that weekend...
There are not many Towers remaining in Norfolk. Seething, Thorpe
Abbots, Horsham(now our main airport at Norwich). There is one
delapidated tower in Rackheath almost lost under vines and bramble
and taken over as a breakers yard, (like many other airfields) There
are numerous airfields with the odd Tower in the neighboring County
of Suffolk all with interesting tales to tell. Many hauntings of dead
Americans left to roam those wasted spaces many miles from home......


keywords: Books: Wartime airfields of East Anglia. Ghosts of Norfolk.
Norfolk Hauntings. Norfolk in wartime.
Visiting Norwich. Accomodation and flights. The Norfolk Broads.
Visiting Norwich.