Haunted RNZAF Bases

[baronbeeza]

Redhill airfield is just a little north of Gatwick and for many years was home to the Tiger Club.

They operated out of 8 Hangar which is literally just across a narrow driveway from 9 Hangar. 9 Hangar is at right angles to the newer hangars that all run along that portion of the flightline.

Here is a pic that shows the orientation.


More of this soon but first a little look around 8 Hangar.




That is Donald Campbell and below is a pretty typical view of what it was like within the hangar during the 60's thru late-80's.



Ok, so that is the Tiger Club hangar and it had a wartime history as well. 485 Squadron operated Spitfires from there in mid-1941.
Obviously many other Squadrons and units also operated from the airfield, and for many years.

Now the story...

It seems that the guys next door reckon they have/had a hangar ghost.
I knew nothing of that until I started looking up info on the Tiger Club hangar just a few years ago.
www.wingsmuseum.co.uk/RAF_Redhill_ghosts.htm

Now the really strange thing. I do know a bit about the ghost and the stories associated with the 8 Hangar version.

This is my story.
One night in mid 1986 I was in a bed in the bunkhouse at the back of the hangar. This was a small room upstairs and at the far end of the tearoom/clubhouse.
Access was from the hangar floor and up a steep flight of stairs with the door leading off to the right into the cafe area. All the light switches were on the inside beside the door frame.
You then had to meander through several coffee tables to get to the bunkhouse door which when opened had two single beds, one either side of the door.

This particular night I was wakened by footsteps coming up the stairs. I could almost count all the 13 steps. It then went quiet and I lay there expecting the lights to come on. They never did.
I then had that feeling that I wasn't alone although I was just laying there in a semi-confused state. I had clearly heard the steps coming up and then just silence, - nothing else.


You can see the window of the tearoom that looks down into the hangar in the pic with the hangared aircraft.

I normally slept in my van but for some reason spent this night upstairs. A few nights later I was at a local pub and talked to the daughter of one of our more senior club pilots. This club was different, it was a meeting place for senior pilots and celebrities etc. No novices here but more likely recognisable names. Jack Brabham had been a member and Christopher Reeve was while I was there.
Anyway Lucy asked me if I had slept upstairs. I replied and then she asked if I was afraid of the ghost.

This was the first I had heard of him. I did tell her what I had experienced though and I could see she was shocked. It turns out others had told of similar events. The footsteps coming up was generally what happens.

In the coming weeks I asked many members what they thought and for a bunch of 'respectable' men I heard a variety of tales. No-one mocked anyone about it.
I didn't speak to him personally about it but many mention that the club 'CFI' had even seen the figure.
The version I heard was that Jim was asleep in the Flight Planning Office down on the hangar floor, after a night out. Apparently the figure walked past the office. I have heard that from the clothing etc that they had narrowed a list down to 3 likely pilots of whatever period.

Now I also heard that the figure just kind of appeared from that side of the hangar, just across the drive from 9 Hangar. We are talking just 4 or 5 metres here.

Their ghost was all news to me but the version I was hearing was that it appears in 8 Hangar and walks to the top of the stairs.

I went back two years later just to put myself through the experience again. I traveled from NZ to England and made a point of staying in that room.
For some reason I couldn't find the courage to turn the lights off though, so never did hear the footsteps again.

*** EDIT ***

A pic showing just how close the two hangars are in that corner.



I still have trouble comprehending how the two adjacent Hangars have ghost stories and yet I was completely oblivious of the 9 Hangar version until just 2 or 3 years ago.
How can one story have him disappearing out the back and then the very next hangar have him appearing and drifting up the side of the hangar and up the stairs ? That is one major coincidence...

PS
Lucy became an airline pilot with Air Atlantique just 2 years after I met her.
Many of the other guys I spoke to were already airline pilots or flying warbirds in the movies.
The Tiger Moth in the pic is G-ACDC and would have been the oldest flying Tiger Moth in the world when I was there. I think it was built in 1934.
(Actually 1933).

[joshykewlkid]

Dam this scares me strate

[Dave Homewood]

I just reread all the old posts on this thread, and saw I'd posted about the 'visitor' I used to get waking me up regularly in my bedroom. Thank goodness that has not happened for many years now. I hope he sodded off for good. However I mentioned earlier about the strange illuminated pattern on my ceiling that woke me once, and I watched in horror as it crept across the ceiling and down the wall towards me - that did happen subsequently on at least two more occasions, maybe three more, with big spaces of time in between. By the last one I simply rolled over and went back to sleep.

Last week when I had my shock with seeing my dead neighbour drive past, followed by the revelations of the ex-neighbour of things that have gone on round here, I got talking to my best mate Mike about the ghostly happenings and I asked if he recalled seeing that ceiling thing in the spare room. He did, clearly, and he revealed something else he'd not mentioned before to me, on another night when he was staying over in the spare room he awoke to find the duvet levitating at least a foot off the bed above him!! Holy shit, that fair terrorfied me. What on earth is going on round here?

Oh and that ex-neighbour, he told me when he was a kid he knew the girl who lived in this house really well, and she used to say she was seeing the exact same things! She refused to sleep in the bedroom that I occupy now!! He said they used to think she was nuts, but now three different people (at least) have experienced weird things here!

Thankfully not for some years!! (apart from that dead neighbour drive-by last week, which was at the end of the street)

[baronbeeza]

My post on this thread was getting a little long and a bit away from RNZAF Bases. Just to add a New Zealand perspective there is a pic about of 485 pilots in front of those two hangars.



rnzaf.proboards.com/thread/18263?page=2

That would be 9 Hangar on the left of the pic.

A view from the roof of 9 Hangar taken in 1939 with RAF training aircraft.

[delticman]

Sounds like I better bring three muffins next time, Dave. R

[A4k]

Great stories/experiences guys!

I've had the levitation thing (and other stuff) once in my dad's place here in Ireland, a Georgian Manor house built in 1833. I literally felt my soul being taken from my body.
I later read in a book someone else's similar experience, in their case it was attempted possession.
I also told my sister much later what happened, in detail, and she said 'Really? That's what grandad said he felt just before he died'...

Interesting experience, but I choose not to stay at my dad's place now! :-)

[Dave Homewood]

I'd really quite like to experience some of the ex-RAF airfield hauntings in the UK. They reckon the control tower at East Kirkby is haunted, and also old aircraft have been heard in the circuit there.

By the way, my recent strange encounter with what I thought was my neighbour's ghost has been solved, with a real Jonathon Creek style explanation, but I now know I did not see a dead lady drive past me thankfully!! The rest of the experiences I related still stand.

[A4k]

Glad that one's solved Dave! Can imagine being pulled over and asked why you swerved off the road suddenly - 'I just saw my dead neighbour drive past me!' 'Interesting sir...Care to breath into this breathaliser a minute?' :-)

Some of the UK bases would definitely be 'interesting' to visit...like the ex-USAAF base where the briefing room is full of orbs, and people still hear a 4 engined bomber fly over...

[Dave Homewood]

Luckily for me I was on the footpath, walking, and also I didn't know she'd died at that stage.

[A4k]

Just as well! :-)

[baronbeeza]

I wrote about the Redhill airfield ghost earlier in this thread.

This account is new to me, just read it tonight. I had not heard this version before.

My experiences were first hand. I was in that room before I ever heard any stories.

John G. Fuller also wrote another book in similar vein, "The Airmen who would not die".
Very good book.

Hangar 8 at Redhill had so many they were referred to as 'friends'.
I have slept there on a number of occasions with nothing more worrying than the thought of the stories.
However, I know of a number of people who refused to sleep there after having been disturbed on more than one occasion.

One story I heard from a reliable source who says he does not believe in ghosts but has no explanation of the event.
Being in the clubroom up the stairs at the back of the hangar one evening, he and a friend hear the back door to the hangar open and bang shut. It was shortly after pub closing time so they thought that some other members were coming back to stay the night. Voices were heard approaching, a small group, less than 6, more than 2, slightly boisterous but nothing could be seen out of the window of the clubroom, looking into the darkness of the hangar.
The voices came closer and started up the stairs to the club room. Although his mate had pointed out that there was nobody there, the person who related this tale to me says he went to the door and opened it, the voices being so clear as to be on the other side of it having climbed the stairs.

He opened the door.....

There was nobody there and the sound ceased.

His friend then repeated slowly and clearly, There is no BODY there!"

Opinion was that it was former club members, hence friends.
Another explanation was that there had been a gallows on that corner of King's Mill Lane there having formerly been a crossroads.

[baronbeeza]

The hangar door mentioned is the entry door from the carpark. It is the rear left corner as we look at the hangar interior view.
The steps leading up to the coffee room and bunkhouse were not quite central from memory.
They would have been about 6 or 7 metres from the entrance. I think there were rows of lockers along that wall in my day.
It would have all been very quick, just a matter of seconds. The door opening, slamming and then the group making their way up the stairs. Maybe a minute or two tops.
The guy that was checking from in the bunkhouse would have opened the bunkhouse door and looked out of the windows, carpark and hangar. Then made his way over to the door at the top of the stairs. Just a short distance also, but difficult without light. He may have had a torch.


I have found the original thread from pprune
www.pprune.org/jet-blast/350703-ghosts-any-personal-experience-2.html

It appears that the book is purely about R101. The account of the bunkhouse seems to be the personal experiences of the guy writing about it.
He then talks mates of mates though so his account could be distorted somewhat.

Very similar to what I experienced though.
Footsteps to the top of the stairs and then silence.


www.wingsmuseum.co.uk/our-work/raf-redhill-surrey/

[davepro]

Late Entry. I was at the RNZAF Museum from 1992 - 2002. Everybody took turns at the duties required to open the building up in the morning and close it in the evening. As the Aircraft Hall is fully sealed against light, it was dark at either time unless the lights were on. I never felt it in the morning, but in the evening there was a definite sense that you weren't alone in there - no noises, but just a sensation. It's a good candidate for haunting, not only because of people who were lost from Wigram but because of all those who passed through on their way to a lonely grave. I felt a little uncertain about this for a while. Then I remembered that we had about 100 volunteer guides, most of whom were WW2 and most of whom I knew. And I decided that the people I could feel in the hangar were just the younger versions of people like them. So, I still felt the same at night, but I stopped being worried about it.

David

[30sqnatc]

I just read thus thread. Well not RNZAF base but the old Waiouru Camp Hospital was haunted. Hearing walking in the main corridor at night was almost routine

I have stood in the hospital corridor in the early hours listening to the steps but there was only the duty nurse and I physically in the corridor. I was stone cold sober being on camp duty and was called down to give the nurse some company. The ghost was reported to be friendly.

Also the hospital wing that was later the Q Store but was used as the morgue for the Tangwai rail bridge disaster had clear shadows on the floor where the bodies were believed to have been placed.