Also known as RAF Cammeringham, RAF Ingham was a Royal Air Force station used by RAF Bomber Command between 1942 and 1944 and by training units and the Polish Air Force until 1946.
According to the Lincolnshire Today website, the opening of the heritage centre is the crowning of 14 years of effort by a team of volunteers “who have transformed an old farm storage building, formerly the wartime Airmen’s Mess, into a wonderful and fitting location to tell an almost forgotten story.”
The website writes that “the Centre is dedicated to remembering and celebrating (through their own personal stories) the remarkable lives and memories of the men and women (both ground and air crews) of the Polish Air Force Bomber Squadrons, who lived, worked and flew alongside the RAF during the Second World War; and will also tell the humanitarian story of their struggles to settle and integrate into ‘post-war’ Britain, whilst retaining their customs, culture and Polish heritage.”
Lincolnshire Today recalls that “at the end of hostilities, many Polish servicemen and women chose not to return to the now communist governed Poland and decided to remain in Britain, making it their new home, under the Polish Resettlement Act of 1947. Formed in 1946 the Polish Resettlement Corps (PRC) provided Polish personnel with a trade and language lessons, for integration into British society.”
The entire exhibition is bilingual in Polish and English.
The heritage centre will formally open to the public during the weekend of April 20-21.
(mk/gs)
Source: Lincolnshire Today
