Second World War mystery

Flight of fancy or serious sighting? The mystery of the landing strips

Inside Out East investigates an
amazing story from the Second World War.

Peter Meston was a young airman flying bombers, when one day he spotted something quite incredible.

The Official Secrets Act has prevented him from telling his remarkable story until now… a story he thought he'd take to his grave.

Strange sightings

Back in 1941 Peter Meston was an acting Flight Commander.

He flew missions in Blenheim bombers along with a young New Zealander called David Watson.

On one flight over Norfolk the men spotted something which could have changed the course of history.

What the men thought they had seen on the ground were secret airstrips.

Inside Out goes back in time at RAF Watton

It was David Watson who first spotted the anomaly from his Blenheim bomber, and the pair went back up for a second look.

"We'd been up in the air for about 15-20 minutes. I'd been trying to spot something out of place, but I couldn't see anything!

"At this point David more or less exploded. 'Look at the bloody lime-mounds'," he said.

"The whole thing then came into focus. There were piles of lime laid out in straight lines with arrows pointing. These were quite extensive and it was obvious they had not got there by accident," said Wing Commander Meston.

"We tried to make sense of what we had seen. These markings had to have been plotted from the air and in daylight, but by whom?

"There were only two options - ourselves as a day bomber unit or the fighter boys. We knew nothing about them and even a dim fighter pilot would not have needed such guidance".

Lime, which was used in the local sugar beet industry, seemed to have been laid, indicating runways.

Next to them the men reported seeing barns conspicuously coloured bright red.

But why were they there and who had built them?

Was there an innocent explanation or something far more sinister?

Secret landing bases?

The men reported the incident to their superiors.

The next day all hell broke loose and the airbase was swarming with members of the secret service branch M15.

Shrouded in secrecy - what did the pilots really see?

The men were told not to talk to anyone.

Peter Meston speaking for the first time on Inside Out is convinced that what he spotted were secret German landing bases.

Unconfirmed reports also claimed the airstrips had been built on farms owned by a Dutch company with connections to Germany.

Historian Colin Waugh backs this theory - he's written a book about RAF Watton, and says the strips were near the villages of Sporle, Beighton, Cantley, Halvergate, Paston, Guestwick and South Repps:

"It appears further investigations were carried out and that the farms at all the sites were owned by the same property company.

"The directors of this company were Dutch and were linked to the Germans. There were also rumours that chicken hutches at the locations were laid out in the shape of a Nazi Swastika."

Good yarn or true story?

Numerous red barns remain today, but not everyone is convinced by the story - some believe it's just a good yarn.

There is another plausible explanation.

During the war the British government was under constant pressure to try to defend our airbases.

One very successful plan was to trick German bombers into attacking dummy targets.

Hundreds of decoy planes and dozens of pretend airstrips were laid out to try to draw German bombers away from the real thing.

Despite the release of the MI5 papers, the conclusions of the investigation have not been released.

Links relating to this story:

• BBC History - WW2

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Timber Framed Houses

Dream home or living nightmare - the reality of wattle and daub

For many of us a timber framed cottage is our dream home, surrounded by wild flowers and topped with a healthy roof of thatch.

But many people are now wishing they'd spent less time sniffing the roses and made more of an effort to check out some hard facts after their vision of a perfect English idyll turned into a nightmare.

You'd have thought that timber houses that have stood the test of time for hundreds of years would be a safe bet as a home.

And with East Anglia having thousands of picture postcard cottages, it's easy to be tempted into buying one.

But some of the advice you get when buying your dream cottage could be a load of old wattle and daub….

Dream cottages

Paula Sunshine always dreamed of living in a country cottage.

She fell for a 16th Century cottage and forked out for a full structural survey.

What lurks behind the white washed walls?

It passed the survey, but 10 years later she's still putting right the serious faults she discovered only after moving in.

The trouble is, when it comes to buying a timber framed building, beauty may only be skin-deep.

Lurking behind the whitewashed walls and under stone floors can be all kinds of horrors waiting to catch out the uninformed buyer.

What's worse, as Inside Out East has discovered, is that some surveyors know so little about these historic buildings they can even fail to spot the most obvious faults, such as missing beams.

Repair nightmare

Paula Sunshine has spent thousands trying to repair her Suffolk cottage after her surveyor missed a whole range of problems including rotten timbers, damaged cement renders and even a beam, which was supposed to be supporting the roof, being cut in two.

"Timber-framed buildings need to be able to breath," she says.

"The problem is that many of them have been repaired with inappropriate concrete renders and paints which suffocate the buildings, trapping the moisture inside the walls and causing the timber frame to rot away, sometimes with disastrous results."

Paula has been so shocked by the lack of knowledge about these buildings that she's gone back to basics, learning traditional skills such as using wattle and daub to restore her 15th Century cottage.

Time to stop the rot - Paula Sunshine checks for damage

But like many other owners, she is still left with thousands of pounds worth of work to be done.

She says surveyors should be more knowledgeable about timber-framed buildings so they can alert potential buyers to the pitfalls.

Bret Hallworth of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says that not every surveyor will have an in-depth knowledge of timber-framed houses and many will not have received specific training in these types of properties.

Therefore he says it is up to the potential buyer to checkout a surveyor's credentials to ensure they have the experience and understanding to conduct the survey.

Living nightmare

Paula is not the only person to get caught out by a survey - Mark Davies bought his Suffolk cottage five years ago.

It turned out the whole house had been rendered in cement, and concrete floors had been laid.

It meant the house couldn't breathe resulting in trapped moisture rotting the timbers.

Mark Davies estimated the cost of putting his home right would be £70,000 so he took the surveyor to court.

He eventually won £52,000.

Mark's experience is just one of scores of similar stories that Paula Sunshine has heard.

Hit hard by her own experience, she's leading a campaign to educate buyers about these houses and make sure that owners employ a surveyor who understands timber framed buildings.

The Royal Institute of Surveyors says that it's planning to make changes to the way that they look at timber framed houses.

Links relating to this story:

• Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites

BBC Inside Out East - Monday October 23, 2006