Mess Memories Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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A quick Cache and Dash by a structure often driven by, but rarely
noticed.
It is one of two towers belonging to the Officers Mess at the
former RAF Fairwood Common.
More can be seen of the site if you take a look on Google
Earth.
The airbase opened on June 15th 1941. On October 25th 1941
Fairwood Common became a Sector Station. The first wartime success
for 125 Sqn at Fairwood came on June 27th 1942, when a Beaufighter
IIf shot down a Junkers Ju 88 off the Pembrokeshire coast, then
again in April 1942 the 125 Sqn successfully battled against the
German 'Baedeker' night raids upon Bath, bringing down an enemy
aircraft and damaging another.
On 23rd June 1942, one of Germany's latest and prized fighter
aircraft, a Focke-WuIf FW 190, was mistakenly landed at Pembrey by
a disorientated pilot after involvement in a dogfight with
Spitfires over southwest England.
The Commanding Officer at Fairwood, Group Captain David Atcherley
drove to Pembrey to fetch the German pilot, Oberleutnant Armin
Faber. During the journey, the prisoner narrowly escaped being
shot, when Atcherley accidently squeezed the trigger of his service
revolver when the car hit a particularly bad pothole in the road.
The discharged bullet hit the car door just inches away from Armin
Faber! The German spent the next two days as a reluctant guest at
Fairwood Common's Officers Mess before being escorted by train from
Swansea's High Street Station to London for further interrogation.
The German plane proved to be an invaluable find for the British,
putting the British-made Typhoons to shame, and the technology
gleaned from the aircraft significantly contributed towards the
1945 design of the Hawker Sea Fury.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
AB ARRQ gb pebff gur tngr be nal sraprf, erzrzore vg vf n Pnpur naq qnfu.