70 Wing RAF France 1939-40

[PeterVerney]

My uncle Edgar (Burnell) Verney was a driver in the pre war RAF and was sent to France in 1939. I have a Christmas card he sent home in 1939 from "No 70 Wing Headquarters in the field".

It has a photo of a large unit of officers and men, formally photographed in front of a large typically French building, possibly an officers mess.

He brought his lorry home with him sometime around the fall of France and parked it outside our house for several days awaiting instructions, such was the shambles then. He spoke about being sent to the same billet that he had been in when he served out there in the 1914-18 war, which I think was in the vicinity of Abbeville. Unfortuneately he was sent straight out to Malta and was killed there about 18 months later

Does anyone know what and where, No 70 Wing was, at that time ?

[Peter Cornwell]

Hello Peter,

No.70 Wing was mobilised at Upper Heyford on September 1, 1939, under G/C W.A.C. Morgan and moved to France as part of the RAF Component on September 24 establishing its HQ at the Château Tilloloy near Amiens. It comprised two squadrons of Blenheims, No.18 and No.57 Squadrons. When ‘the balloon went up’ on May 10, 1940, it was based at Rosières but moved HQ to Château de Courcelles at Poix on May 17 and to Crecy two days later en-route to Boulogne under orders to evacuate back to England. You will find the Operations Record Book in the NA(PRO) at Kew under AIR26/90.

[PeterVerney]

Very many thanks.

[PeterVerney]

Isn't Google Earth wonderful.
On the offchance I put in Chateau Tilloloy near Amiens France and it came right up with the Chateau and village of Tilloloy and a possible runway just beside it. Possibly used by the Germans later ?