Earlier this week I attended the unveiling of a plaque and storyboard at Newmarket Race Course commemorating the site’s wartime history. As anyone who has read Moonlight Crusaders will know, it was where the 2 Special Duties Squadrons (nos. 138 & 161) were founded, and from where some of the earliest SD Lysander missions were mounted. It was therefore apposite (and a treat) that Dodge Bailey brought the Shuttleworth Collection’s Lysander over from Old Warden.Watching it depart from Newmarket’s very flat turf was moving, and I was struck with the thought that the French fields that 161 used were rarely as flat and smooth! I certainly enjoyed a billiard table surface when I landed.

It was also a treat to meet up with historians with an interest in the secret services, some of whom I count as friends, and some whom I met for the first time, including Aurélien (President of the association which keeps the memory of the BOA alive)who came over from France. Unveiling the plaque were a daughter and a great niece of two résistants who were intimately involved in arranging landing fields.

A great day.