RAF Bases near Ramsey
When Josef landed near the village of Ramsey on the evening of January 31, 1941, he had a map in his possession which caused quite a stir with the local authorities. A pencilled circle and a cross marked the locations of two Royal Air Force Bases. The cross marked RAF Upwood and the circle marked RAF Warboys.
While both air bases have long since been decommissioned, their association with Josef Jakobs, would-be German spy, is still remembered.
Sean Edwards maintains two websites, one devoted to RAF Upwood and one devoted to RAF Warboys.
RAF Upwood Website
The website devoted to RAF Upwood contains a section on Josef Jakobs. Much of the information comes from Stephen Stratford’s website [N.B. 2021 – Stephen’s site is no longer live. The link takes you to a 2016 snapshot of his site via the WayBack Machine.] which outlines Josef’s court martial and has been reviewed here.
The RAF Upwood site does contain a bit of extra information regarding Josef’s arrival and capture at Dovehouse Farm. A map shows the location of Dovehouse Farm in relation to Ramsey. A similar map can be obtained via www.streetmap.co.uk.
This extra information on the RAF Warboys site is accurate. The site also makes mention of the map in Josef’s possession which highlighted the locations of the aerodromes at Upwood and Warboys.
RAF Warboys Website
This website was only uploaded in 2012 and is still under construction. Construction on RAF Warboys began in 1940 and the airfield was ready for use in July 1941, several months after Josef had landed. While this website makes no particular mention of Josef, it is interesting to know that the Germans may have already had information on the airfield even before it was put into use.
Summary
A couple of good websites with quite a bit of information on the history of RAF Upwood & RAF Warboys. The information provided on Josef’s court-martial is based on Stephen Stratford’s site which contains a few errors. The introductory paragraph on Josef is accurate.
Review
4.5 out of 5
Header Image – “RAF National Service Circa 1951” by David Kilvington is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 (Avro Lincoln at RAF Upwood)