AN RAF Dakota called Kwicherbichen flew over the wartime airfield at Blakehill Farm 74 years after an aircraft with the same name carried D Day soldiers to France for the invasion.

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight C-47 had just taken part in the historic RAF 100 flypast over the Mall in London on Tuesday and was heading to RAF Fairford for the air tattoo when the pilots decided to take it over the old base near Cricklade.

Flt Lt Paul ‘Ernie’ Wise, who was in the cockpit with pilot Flt Lt Seb Davey, told the Advertiser: “With the runway direction allocated for that day it was only appropriate we routed that way in. Seb and I have both visited the memorial on the ground there, but it was a humbling sight airborne in the Dakota.”

The old runways could still be seen in the landscape below them even though they closed in the 1950s. It is now a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve and home to Oak and Furrows Wildlife Rescue, but in 1944 it was busy with aircraft in the weeks before Operation Overlord and during the invasion itself. One of the Dakota transport planes of 233 Squadron, which was based there and used to drop parachutists on the day before D Day as well as evacuate casualties in the days that followed, was called Kwicherbichen by its crew. The BBMF aircraft is painted to represent the original plane.