Episode Four - RAF Keevil and the Air Transport Auxillary

In Episode 4 recorded in June 2024 on the 80th Anniversary of D-Day we record from Keevil Airfield formerly RAF Keevil. RAF Keevil was an essential part of the Allied war effort. After the bombing of the Southampton Spitfire factory production in September 1940 that killed 110 people and the taking of his own life of the proprietor of the factory for not having listened to the War Ministry, changes were made by Lord Beaverbrook. That meant that production of the Spitfire moved inland to Reading, Newbury, Salisbury and Trowbridge.

RAF Keevil was chosen as it was simple to drive to Southampton and it was close to Trowbridge. Having been designed in the late 1930s it was commissioned at speed on a 237 hectare plot three miles from Trowbridge affording the transport on Queen Mary trailers of fuselages, complete with their unattached wings, to a purpose built hanger at Keevil. Where the planes were assembled and then flown out via the Air Transport Auxillary of the RAF.

The unsung heroes of WW2 and the Allied war effort.

Listen in to myself and my son William (aged 10) who is a aviation buff and history addict as we tell the story of the bit of the war you didn't know about and maybe it's overdue you took notice of.

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