Just a few miles from Colmworth is the abandoned Tempsford airfield where RAF squadrons 161 and 138 were stationed from 1940. This was part of the Special Operation Executive which sent spies to occupied countries in Europe where they carried out sabotage and assassination missions. The airfield was disguised as a working farm and we walked towards a barn that was the hub of the operation, sending hundreds of young men and women into alien territory. Inside the barn the spies were kitted out with arms, explosives and cyanide pills.

The small Lysander and larger Hudson planes were able to take off and land on very short strips and they could drop the operatives on the continent, remaining on the ground for just three minutes before taking off again for home.

Many of the spies were natives of the countries to which they were sent as their missions required intimate knowledge of the countryside, the language and the people.

Of the operatives, 75 were women and four of them were awarded the George Cross. Two posthumously. Many of the spies were captured, tortured and executed. Others chose to swallow their lethal capsules for fear of exposing others to danger. Many of the hundreds of the active airmen were also killed during these operations. Outside the barn, trees are planted with plaques to commemorate some of those who did not make it home.

We left the barn and walked along an ancient, straight roman road where legionnaires had trod two thousand years before the stationing of war planes. It was a memorable walk in an ancient and historic landscape where many ghosts reside.