Amazingly. While driving no where in particular on a Sunday...A roundabout appears in middle of nowhere just outside Rugby UK...a early Frank Whittle jet on a plinth in silver...in middle of nowhere...Got out of car...Few yards away a little sign on a sitck...right next to someones house in a quiet lane but on the road....A brief history of Frank Whittle on it and explanation of his factory being based nearby at one time...I dont know about anyone else but Im constantly amazed when I drive or walk into these things unexpectedly.

My question is....Has anyone else done similar and blundered into history?

Nothing quite so "concrete", in the sense that a plinth, or plaque, or someother memorial existed and I blundered onto it. But since I live in the US they are far and few between in my neck of the woods. Montana however had a great many more WW2 airfields than I ever knew of, I spotted the first one by accident when flying with my Dad back in the late fifties, early sixties. It was the HUGE facility at Cut Bank MT., that was a landing/transfer point for Soviet bound aircraft during Lend/Lease transfers. It (Cut Bank) is these days a rather small un-used by any but the locals, airstrip and a couple of buildings.

But flying over it you can clearly see these long, multi-directional concrete strips which are just being lost to the local flora with only a couple still in use. Then later, on another voyage there was another one just like it at Glasgow MT., another ferrying emergency landing site. That one remained in service longer than the one at Cut Bank, but was deserted eventually.

Here is a link to a fine site which shows most of the abandoned airfields here in the States.

Goto:

http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/index.htm

And ponder just how many "man-hours" were spent constructing all of them!

__________________
Happy Trails,
Clint.

im not american but can see thats a great site. should interest all the air buffs on here

Hello urqh. Hailing from the NE area of PA I constantly drive by memorials to battles long forgotten in the anuls of history. Obviously, nothing very large. Just a small sign that marks a spot where brave Native American warriors fought a pitched battle against the local colonists for one reason or another.

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Please give the Combined Fleet the chance to bloom as flowers of death. This is the navy’s earnest request. RADM Tasuku Nakazawa prior to the Battle of Leyte Gulf
It is the function of the Navy to carry the war to the enemy so that it will not be fought on U.S. soil. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz

well ive learned a lesson. always keep a camera in the car.

Is that the one near Lutterworth Urqh? It's not been there for that long if I recall right.
Nice little museum there that's a shrine to the great man.

There's an incongruous little stone in a layby near Daventry in Northants that we drove past for years and wondered what it was, just on a road, by some fields, no landmarks or anything obvious. Finally stopped and had a shufti a while back, and it's the 'Birthplace of Radar':

Radar Memorial. on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
DAVENTRY

~A

thats it von poop.. the info stick is a little way away from roundabout and im surprised it hasnt been pinched in that location.the radar items great..thats what i mean.. how many ever know these things are there...

I thought "Radar" was from Iowa?...Ottumwa Iowa....

Alright put down the pitchfork and step away.

There are several little cottages here on the west coast that were radar installations.

On vacation a few years ago my wife and I stumbled upon an abandon Army installation near Ferndale California just south of Eureka. By abandoned it looked as if someone had just closed the gates and left.

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"Logos, Philos, Arete"

I once stumbled onto a bronze colored plaque in a local watering hole one night and read "at this location, on this date in 1897, absolutely nothing of importance occured." The things you can learn in a bar never ceases to amaze me....

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On the Plains of Hesitation
lies the blackend bones of countless millions
who, at the dawn of victory sat down to rest,
and resting died....
(author unknown-I wish it was me)

Nice one of these yesterday.
Picking the sprog up from a Cub camp at Caythorpe Court in Lincolnshire - found that one of the buildings (Now named Arnhem Court), was occupied by 1st Airborne Signals immediately prior to Market Garden, and a Horsa fuselage used to stand for training purposes where we parked .

They were rendering the courtyard walls on the day of departure and one soldier neatly wrote 'A Sec' (tion) in the render with a little parachute symbol above. This is now joined by a plaque commemorating the men and their actions.

Touching stuff... but I failed the camera test and left the damned thing behind .

~A