Valley Aerodrome, McAlpine, Rhosneigr, Royal Engineers

To all:

My father Leonard Daley [born Liverpool 1905] was an officer with the Royal Engineers [Lancaster Engineers peace time] and/or McAlpine during WW II. As a child [born 1936] I lived in Rhosneigr, Anglesey and visited Valley "Aerodrome," with my mother perhaps in 1943-1944. One of his duties was training Free-French until something happened and everything fell apart (think that was the August 1942, Dieppe disaster).

I did not find mention of Valley, even as it was sometimes called Rhosneigr Aerodrome. Thus I do not know if it was built by McAlpine, the Royal Engineers or others...

For some strange reason although I remember very precisely some details, there are so many others that are partially or completely lose. Thus any information would be appreciated.

Here is a section of my book of memories:

"... We watched all, the trees, the milk churns, dull shining metal lined up as ranks of soldiers, waiting for pick up. We watched the fields, everything, every detail…towards the only stop I recall on the way to Holyhead.
That stop is the Valley Railroad Station. Just before that train entered Valley Railroad Station, we passed over a level crossing with a street, unusual in Great Britain. It was protected with white wooden gates. To our left, beyond the white gates, the street was tree-lined curving slightly through open ground leading towards a two-story house on the left side of the street going away from the railroad track. That street curved there to avoid a small marsh with rushes, to reach the house which is about 100 yards away from the station.

To the right, on the other side of the closed gates, there was a wider street lined with houses, which my memory insists were made of wood, which also would be quite unusual in Wales. Perhaps this is a false image, perhaps a latter memory from the U.S. perhaps not. Still that is the way my now rare dreams of that part of my childhood display it.

I remember with the memory of a boy of perhaps six, getting off the train at that Valley Rail Road Station to visit Dad with my mother and brother and perhaps my sister Lucia, was born in 1941. Strangely in my memories, this place looks much more like a US train station than a British one, but this may be an illusion rooted in mixed memories.

On the other hand in war time information on such a place and its construction would be subject to the dire “Official Secrets Act.” Thus such information is still not readily available. However by July 1943, thanks to McAlpine Company and its hard working Irish navvies, Valley Aerodrome was becoming a US as well as British Air Force Base. Thus, temporary wooden housing could have been imported from the US.

When we got to Holyhead, we left the train at the covered railroad station. This image repeated every school day is still strong and certain. Emerging from the shade of the station we found ourselves by small curving stone lined harbor. ..."

Dad died too early in some kind of irregular way in Havana, apparently he was too close to the British Embassy there...

Thank you for your time and attention

Any information will be appreciated

Laurence Daley
Professor Emeritus [Plant Biochemistry and Biophysics]

Welcome Laurence from OSU ~ In the top right corner of the page is the site search engine so enter Rhosneigr Valley and you should find one existing thread that may be of assistance ?

/community/showthread.php?1826-Valley&highlight=Rhosneigr%2C+valley

The RAF Site link is below ~ assume that you have already searched on line ?

www.raf.mod.uk/rafvalley/aboutus/stationhistory.cfm

I noticed that it also comes up as Rhoscolyn but don't know why ?

Dave.

addendum:

Apparently we met outside the AirBase, In some kind of dining facility, a hotel I think. There we were served "Welsh rarebit," and either the cheese, which probably came from the US, was covered in wax as is standard. However, apparently the hotel staff unused to such protective wax, served the cheese mixed in with the wax. It tasted quite bad. My parents objected strongly enough for me to remember.

Can I presume that the German bombers went up the Dee estuary and approached Liverpool, Merseyside, Garston docks flying over Barton Marsh, where ther was a decoy of the Garston Docks?

“Addict” w10694 (last accessed 8-10-2015 ) Burton Marsh WW2 Bombing Decoy Wirral History

www.wikiwirral.co.uk/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/280405 "...The whole idea of the WW2 Bombing Decoys was that we knew the Luftwaffe bombers came up the Dee Estuary from the south, and then turned right, to pass over the Wirral, and then Liverpool. After the first bombers had passed over, we then lit up fires and electric lighting, so that it looked as the decoy site was the real site, hoping that subsequent bombers would bomb Burton Marsh, which they did, and it still bears the scars.

The whole affair and operation was Ultra Secret, and very efficient, with numerous bombs being dropped by the Luftwaffe onto Burton Marsh. the local populace were told nothing about the real reason for the nightime activity, and to this day some still believe what they were told was "the truth".

I can only surmise that it was like the Cherry Cob Sands Decoy on the Humber, with lights angled downwards, pointing at a water surface, with the lights arranged in the shape of the actual dock edge. Cherry Cob Sands on the Humber was a similar arrangement, and was what really got me started here. It was also featured in a TV documentary whereby it was re-created.

This post: Cherry Cob Sands Decoy describes the Cherry Cob Sands decoy.

I've always been puzzled as to the actual location of the decoy for Garston Docks, which was built on Burton Marsh. Contemporary reports describe, poles, wires and electric lights. Speaking to a local chap, he described where the decoy was actually located on Burton Marsh.

Using the "Archeology by Photoshop" technique, I took a Google Earth picture of Garston Docks, cut it out, and pasted it onto a Google Earth picture of Burton Marsh, where I thought it should go.

Putting it at the same scale and orientation, gives an exact fit as to where I was told that it was, corresponding to various bunkers, feeding canals, and water ponds etc...."

Since my father was English, and yet my mother was Cuba [her father was Consul General in Liverpool during the 1920-1930's] we lived in Liverpool before he war, then Rhosneigr, returning to Liverpool towards the end of WW2.

However, in Havana. there was a spy for the Nazi, who went under the name of Otto Ott. He was a 'dwarf' and has a description which coincidentally fits the famed communist master mind Fabio Grobart, 'Stalin's man in Havana.' Herr Otto Ott ran a bordello for sailors from which he gathered information for the German U-boats, Condor aircraft etc. to target convoys for Britain. The coincidence between Otto Ott and Fabio Grobart is strongly denied by present day communist officials, but I think even if I do not know for certain, that they 'protesteth too much'

If this sounds strange bear in mind that Hitler and Stalin cooperated from autumn 1939 until the summer of 1941.

Also keep in mind that Cuba once exported large amounts of sugar to England, primarily through Merseyside docks I think. For instance the Swedish cobblestones of the Havana docks were at least in part, a reminder of WW1 when Grand-Uncle Carlos Garcia Velez ambassador to the Court of Saint James was smuggling sugar into England (this I know for certain from whispered words of my the bedridden grand uncle s son).

Perhaps in Garston there is some very old sailor who recalls the 'flesh pots' of the Havana of WW2

On the aviation front there was a General Carlos Garcia Velez who attended the Wright brothers medal ceremony in Dayton Ohio while holding the position of Cuban Minister to the United States that must have been in the early 1900's.

We covered some parts of Cuban history at technical college during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the guy who held a suspicious role at St James was Joe Kennedy.

FDR had introduced his Good Neighbor policy during the 1930's and had appointed Nelson Rockefeller to head up the new organization so we ended up with Joe Kennedy as Ambassador until he went off message on the run up to or during the Battle of Britain ~ so that FDR had him recalled and then released him from any further obligations.

The story I heard during a visit to Chicago during the bicentenary celebrations was that Joe's political organization had used the services of Sam Giancana to bring in the union vote favoring his son John and that was the connection back to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This story came via a Mrs Potter who owned a bulk cigarette outlet on the Illinois Gary Indiana boarder that her husband managed and Giancana had provided insurance cover for the business that was later torched some time during the 1970's. ( I believe that there was a significant tax difference between the two states that made the business viable while it was covered. )

The only possible connection that I can think of with Liverpool sugar importation may have been as the result of part payment for the British Legions who were operating in the region ?

Peter wrote:

I'm sure all the stories of spies during, before and after WW2 have not been fully told and possibly in another 30 years more will come out , assuming there are papers held on the hundred year rule?

Still we know that all secret installations in Cuba resembled vacuum cleaners

It is as you mention a a very strange thing the novel "Our Man in Havana" pre-dates the real missile crisis.

The RussianCastro deception of the real thing was so great, they added disinformation to the bulk of the real observations made by anti-Castro Cubans, that both British and US intelligence services were deceived. Even Sir Herbert Stanley Marchant, was mislead. So the Cuban resistance to was sending info to the US, and my uncle Jose Norman was releasing it to the press, but only getting sporadic attention. Finally there was so much info coming out of Cuba that Kennedy with press pressure had to send the observation planes U-2 if I recall correctly without my notes. Uncle NOrman is best known for composing "Cuban Pete," but he kept trying to inform the British Embassy under Stanley Fordham, but was ignored by pompous idiots on staff in the Havana Station.

I am trying to cover as much of this as I know in my book "Love and War in Cuba" the first volume should come out next year/

BTW Most interested people know that Sir Herbert had been at Bletchley Park during WW2, but few of these people know he did a long tour of Russia in 1935-1936 apparently trying to check out the then controversial reports of Gareth Jones had been sending to Lloyd George until he was killed... then after WW2 Sir Herbert was doing something from diplomatic bases in Eastern Europe

Harboda77;163124 wrote:

On the aviation front there was a General Carlos Garcia Velez who attended the Wright brothers medal ceremony in Dayton Ohio while holding the position of Cuban Minister to the United States that must have been in the early 1900's.

We covered some parts of Cuban history at technical college during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the guy who held a suspicious role at St James was Joe Kennedy.

FDR had introduced his Good Neighbor policy during the 1930's and had appointed Nelson Rockefeller to head up the new organization so we ended up with Joe Kennedy as Ambassador until he went off message on the run up to or during the Battle of Britain ~ so that FDR had him recalled and then released him from any further obligations.

The story I heard during a visit to Chicago during the bicentenary celebrations was that Joe's political organization had used the services of Sam Giancana to bring in the union vote favoring his son John and that was the connection back to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Joe Kennedy was so pro-German that the British had to set up a kind of honey trap, for his subordinates and force him to leave.

This story came via a Mrs Potter who owned a bulk cigarette outlet on the Illinois Gary Indiana boarder that her husband managed and Giancana had provided insurance cover for the business that was later torched some time during the 1970's. ( I believe that there was a significant tax difference between the two states that made the business viable while it was covered. )

The only possible connection that I can think of with Liverpool sugar importation may have been as the result of part payment for the British Legions who were operating in the region ?

you are correct about the visit to the Wright Brothers, However, take the Mafia links with caution they did exist to some extent, but not the level put out by Castro Propaganda,,,

Cuba had very efficient and very large sugar mills, since the US was offering price support to the all Cuban sugar produced by both Cuban and US owned mill, surplus sugar was exported. Britain would purchase somewhere between 800,000 to a million tons a year, principally (I think) to Tate and Lyle. That is why Tio Carlos was at the court of Saint James. and grandfather his half brother Calixto Enamorado was consul general in Liverpool for a long time.

Tio Carlos and the then US Ambassador got together, and refused to wear stockings and breaches, and instead wore slightly more conventional striped trousers and tails.... He had an immense collection of these garments in a closet by the door of his house in Vedado, Havana, I remember exploring it as a kid.

The Jack Kennedy problem was apparently solved by trapping some of his subordinates in a discrete honey trap. Then Kennedy and his pro-Nazi nonsense was removed from the scene...