Candlelit vigil being held to mark 80th anniversary of WW2 airfield in Essex
The airfield played an important role in the war
A candlelit vigil will take place tomorrow to mark the 80th anniversary of a Second World War airfield in Essex.
RAF Bradwell Bay, located near Maldon, was often used as an emergency landing ground for planes returning from Europe suffering from damage and casualties.
At 21:54 on the evening of Saturday 16th April, people are due to gather at the memorial, which will be lit up with candles, to coincide with the time the first operational flight took off from the airfield in 1942.
Eric Simonelli, deputy chairman of the RAF Bradwell Bay group, says it's important to remember the occasion to prevent atrocities from happening again: "History should be something that we learn from but do we?
"We have a massive war going on in Ukraine in the moment which is following many of actions seen in the Second World War. "As a race, we haven't learnt from history enough."
Eric says the vigil is not only to remember the soldiers who worked from the airfield, but also the countless others who contributed to the war effort, who can sometimes be overlooked: "It's to commemorate everybody that contributed to RAF Bradwell Bay over four or five years during the Second World War.
"That includes all the ground crew, mechanics, fire crews, catering people, men and women - there was a large Women's Auxiliary Air Force presence at the base."
He says he also wants to recognise the sacrifices made by the village of Bradwell due to their hosting of the airfield: "The village gave a lot. It lost all it's freedom.
"Because it was such a high security area, there was a control post in one of the pubs as you enter the village and you had to show a pass and go through security to enter the village even if you'd lived in Bradwell for two or three generations."
There will also be an exhibition at the memorial before and after the vigil which members of the public are free to attend to find out more.
Eric hopes this, combined with the vigil, will help put the airfield on the map: "Bradwell Bay is not such a famous airfield, although it was quite important.
"You hear about places like Hornchurch and North Weald, all of those famous airfields from the Second World War, but you say Bradwell to people and they don't know where it is... only the people that are interested have heard of it."