WENVOE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.
WENVOE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.
Maybe not, but 80 years ago it was a different story. As a child I remember my mother who at the time was living with her parents in Ely, telling me that they had a rather handsome American serviceman billeted with them.
Much to the consternation of my father, who at the time was fighting his own war in Jamaica, and judging by the photographs of the time, involved a lot of sun bathing, sipping Blue Mountain coffee and consuming copious amounts of locally brewed beer. Following the recent anniversary of the D-Day landings, I started to ponder the story that my mother had told me as a child. Where would this American serviceman have been based? Well I need not look any further than our own village of Wenvoe. Just to the west of the Wenvoe Castle estate was a military base made up of huts and tents, with its own airfield running alongside Port Road East.
THEN
NOW
1943 it was the Air Observation Post L4 that accompanied the U.S. Army Artillery Battalion. 1944 the 115th. Field Artillery Battalion U.S. Army. A division of the 90th. V11 Corps.
After they departed to the D-Day embarkation ports they were replaced by follow up troops of the 38th. Field Artillery Battalion of the 2nd. Division V Corps.
For a short time the base was used to house German and Italian POWs. Today there is nothing left to show of the airbase that housed a small town larger than Wenvoe. Nature has taken back control, the concrete parade ground and hut bases no longer visible.
The memories of our American allies who, for a short time made Wenvoe their home will now all have gone. But let us not forget them or the sacrifices made by those who did not return to their families and loved ones.
Robert Bird F.B.H.I. (retired)
For those wishing to explore the area Grid Ref. ST12470
(Photograph courtesy of the Welsh Assembly Photographic Archive)