1,018 men dead. 188 aircraft lost. Those are the numbers for one squadron, No. 460 RAAF, that flew Lancaster bombers from RAF Binbrook between 1943 and the end of the Second World War. They dropped more bomb tonnage than any other squadron in Bomber Command and flew more sorties than any other Australian bomber squadron. Most of those men were in their early twenties. They came from Brisbane and Adelaide and small towns in New South Wales, crossed half the world to a wet hilltop in Lincolnshire, and one in five did not go home. The memorial plaque on the former parade square remembers them by name.
RAF Binbrook opened in June 1940, in the desperate weeks after Dunkirk when Britain was reorganising for a long war. The first residents were No. 12 Squadron with Vickers Wellingtons, twin-engine bombers that had been the workhorse of early Bomber Command operations over occupied Europe. No. 142 Squadron arrived alongside, briefly flying the obsolete Fairey Battle before switching to Wellingtons themselves. The grass airfield turned to mud in winter, and in 1942 the station closed for the installation of three concrete runways. When it reopened in 1943, it had been allocated to the Royal Australian Air Force. No. 460 Squadron RAAF arrived with their Avro Lancasters, settled into the rebuilt accommodation blocks, and began the deadliest aerial campaign in history.
Through 1943, 1944, and 1945, the Lancasters of 460 Squadron flew night after night to Berlin, the Ruhr, Hamburg, Dresden, every major target in the German war machine. They flew the most sorties of any Australian bomber squadron, dropped more tonnage than any squadron in Bomber Command full stop, and paid for it with 188 aircraft and 1,018 dead. Most casualties were aircrew shot down over Europe, but some died in training accidents on Lincolnshire hills or were killed when crippled aircraft crashed trying to land at Binbrook in fog. The squadron's most famous aircraft, G for George, survived 90 operations and is now displayed at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The men of 460 are remembered today by a plaque and memorial benches around the station's former ident square, a small dignity for a vast sacrifice.
Postwar, Binbrook stayed busy. Distinguished bomber squadrons including IX, 12, 101, and 617, the famous Dambusters, were all stationed here for over a decade each. The station saw the RAF's transition into the jet age with the arrival of the first English Electric Canberras. In the 1960s, the role shifted entirely. The Central Fighter Establishment moved in from West Raynham, and two squadrons of English Electric Lightnings took up residence between 1965 and 1988. The Lightning was the RAF's first and only supersonic interceptor, a needle-nosed delta-winged rocket of an aircraft that could climb at over 50,000 feet per minute and break the sound barrier in level flight. From Binbrook they intercepted Soviet bombers probing the North Sea air corridors, day and night, throughout the coldest years of the Cold War.
In 1989, with the Lightnings retired and the station closing, Binbrook's wartime infrastructure made it the perfect set for a Hollywood film. Director Michael Caton-Jones used Binbrook alongside RAF Little Rissington to portray the USAAF base in Memphis Belle, the 1990 dramatisation of the legendary B-17's twenty-fifth mission. Some of the original Memphis Belle aircrew, including radio operator Robert Hanson, visited during filming and met the young actors playing them. Hanson's verdict on the cast was diplomatic: 'not quite as good-looking as we were, but they are young and enthusiastic, exactly like we were.' The station closed for good in 1992. The married quarters became the village of Brookenby. The hangars house small businesses. The flight line is fenced off and used to store ex-military equipment awaiting resale, the runways quiet now except for the wind off the Wolds.
Located at 53.45 degrees N, 0.21 degrees W on the chalk uplands of the Lincolnshire Wolds, about 9 miles south of Grimsby and 6 miles east of Market Rasen. The former airfield is visible from cruise altitude as a triangular pattern of three concrete runways set in farmland. Nearest active airports: Humberside (EGNJ) about 12 nautical miles north, RAF Coningsby about 30 nautical miles south. The flat Lincolnshire fenland stretches west; the North Sea coast lies 12 miles east. Best viewed at low altitude in late morning when shadows reveal the dispersal pans and revetments.