Inscription could have been last act at airfield by doomed World War II pilot, say archaeologists

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Writing on wall for pens which once provided Spitfire and Hurricane base

Reading ‘N’ and ‘194’, a mysterious inscription on an air raid shelter was found late on Christmas Eve by archaeologists working at RAF Coltishall, an important Second World War airfield where single-engine fighters were penned during the Battle of Britain.

David Gurney, the County Archaeologist, hopes that further investigating will reveal the missing letter and number and lead to more inscriptions from the wartime period at the airfield, which closed in 2006.

“Under different lighting conditions we may well be able to read the full inscription, as has been done with a very successful project to record medieval graffiti in Norfolk churches,” he says.

“We can’t prove it, but there’s a good chance that this inscription dates to 1940 and the time when RAF Coltishall was involved in the Battle of Britain.

“It might have been done by one of the groundcrew working on a Spitfire or a Hurricane, or even one of the pilots.

“Although we’ll probably never know who it was who left his mark here, coming across something like this always reminds us of all those who served at Coltishall and lost their lives during the war.

“This might have been the last thing that a pilot did before he took off in his fighter, never to return."

E-shaped and made of hessian bags filled with solidifying concrete, the pens stood behind small brick sheds used to shelter the tractors which moved people and supplies around the base.

Ten fighter pens were dispersed around the perimeter track of the airfield, of which one survives intact. Council officials want to renovate the shed and use it for guided tours if they can secure funding for repairs.

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Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk//history-and-heritage/military-history/world-war-two/art511725-inscription-could-have-been-last-act-at-airfield-by-doomed-world-war-two-pilot-say-archaeologists