Event Holme’s 1940s weekend
Holmewood Hall near Peterborough is significant in World War Two history. When the D-Day invasion was being planned it was clear that in order to disrupt the German Army in support of the landings, the resistance fighters in Europe needed to be supplied with the wherewithal to do so.
The United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) then set up a packing station on the site as it was on the east coast rail line and near the Great North Road (A1). Supplies were brought in on civilian lorries, then packed into canisters to be attached to a parachute.
Planes used to undertake practice drops of these canisters here to check that the loads were equally balanced. The packed canisters were then taken to RAF Harrington, near Kettering and loaded onto planes before being dropped to resistance fighters in occupied Europe. The site was closed in December 1944 and what happened here during that crucial year was kept a closely guarded secret until 1981, when a senior American officer from that time returned as a tourist.
For the past few years the hall and the village of Holme have hosted ‘On the Holme Front’, a free-to-enter celebration and commemoration of the war. The whole place c…
