The wartime snowball fight at the Petwood Hotel. Click to enlarge.

It is a Petwood Hotel picture literally frozen in time... of brave men, some scarcely beyond childhood, indulging in that most favourite of children's winter pastimes after the night has brought snow rather than a deadly trip to Germany.

Some of the men in the picture are from the 617 Dambusters Squadron, taking part in an impromptu winter lark that was snapped from a doorway leading onto the beautiful terrace at the back of the Petwood by an unknown photographer, probably himself an airman.

 The picture is part of a collection by Jim Shortland, one of Lincolnshire's foremost aviation experts and lecturers, who has kindly given us permission to reproduce it.

Behind the bombers boys swapping snowballs the grounds are carpeted white, suggesting that maybe they would be spared any missions for a day or two perhaps.

We simply do not know exactly when the picture was taken, although Jim believes it may be the winter of 1944 which would put it not long after the sinking of the German battleship Tirpitz by 617 and 9 Squadrons in November as she lay in a Norwegian fjord.

The snowball fight view taken this year. Click to enlarge

On the right is a photograph taken by Lynne McEwan from the same doorway where that other photographer stood all those years ago. The two trees in the background are still there today and of course the terrace wall remains the same.

What also remains the same is the debt we owe to those young men in the picture. That too has not changed over the 65 years.

Like the winter snow, they have melted away into history. Yet somehow they are still there.. and our tour will always strive to bring back to life the memory of the snowball boys, and the tens of thousands of men just like them who would have smiled with delight at this moment of fun in a world at war.