Digby
When the Battle of Britain raged in the late summer and autumn of 1940, RAF Digby’s pilots joined in the action, supporting the squadrons based in East Anglia. It also served as a rest and recuperation base for frontline Home Counties squadrons_and at one point a certain Douglas Bader of 222 Squadron was here.
But after its stint with the Few it gradually settled into life as night fighter station, guarding Midlands and Yorkshire industrial areas and the ports of the Humber. Twin-engined Blenheims, Beaufighters and Mosquitos flew from here on night patrols, downing insurgent Heinkels and Dorniers and harrying Axis shipping.
The first 'scramble' of the war was ordered from this room
Guy Gibson volunteered to do a night-fighting tour here when he had earned a rest after completing his Bomber Command tour with 83 squadron at Scampton. Flying a Beaufighter, he claimed three kills.
Today it remains an RAF station - and at its heart is a wonderful piece of wartime history - the original underground operations room.
The first "scramble" of the Second World War is believed to have been ordered here on September 3, 1939.
Within it's atmospheric walls it is easy to visual the busy WAAF's moving markers around the table, the barked orders from uniformed officers amid trails of cigarette smoke in the shadows, the very scent of a country at war.
Not far from here is another must-visit place - Scopwick Cemetery. Here, in this quite country graveyard, are rows of young men - many of them Canadians - who lie far from home after giving their lives in the defence of Britain.
Among them lies the writer of one of the greatest aviation poems ever written - John Gillespie Magee, author of High Flight.
