In recent years High Wycombe has been pleased to welcome new residents coming to the town to live in the area off Daws Hill Lane known as Pinetree. This was once a part of the Wycombe Abbey estate which was formerly the site of a large manor house known as Loakes House. This was the seat of the Archdale family until 1700, when Thomas Archdale sold it to Henry Petty, 1st Earl of Shelburne.

Shelburne then bequeathed the estate to his grand-nephew William Petty, who in turn sold it at auction to Robert Smith, 1st Baron Carrington in 1798. He then employed the architect James Wyatt to transform Loakes House into the present Wycombe Abbey. This was sold in 1896 to form the school of the same name, and the Carringtons moved to live at Daws Hill House, off Daws Hill Lane.

Second World War

In 1942, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, direct military involvement by the USA began in the war in Europe. The UK & European headquarters of the USAAF 8th Bomber Command was established at the Wycombe Abbey School and codenamed Pinetree. The Commanding General of the base was Brigadier General Ira Eaker, who chose the location because of its proximity to the RAF Bomber Command at Naphill.

On March 30, during the school’s Easter holiday, the Headmistress received the requisitioning notice from the War Office in London. The school was to be vacated by April 15 giving the staff 16 days to relocate the students and move out all the equipment, no mean logistical feat. The girls were moved to some 40 different schools.

Moving military personnel into a former girl’s school presented its own unique experiences. One legendary story refers to the first night junior USAAF officers spent in the upper dormitory of the school and revolves around the signs by each bed which told the previous occupants to ‘Contact a Mistress in an emergency’ ! General Eaker moved into the Headmistress’s office, and the school’s buildings were allocated to various USAAF operations.

These included the Chapel, which was converted for multi-purpose use, as a cinema, a meeting centre, and a jury room for courts martial hearings. This use caused the students returning after the war to demand that the building be re-consecrated !

Between May 12 and 15, 1942, just under 400 military personnel arrived at the base, with a further tranche coming in June. General Eaker performed a formal opening ceremony, at which he gave a very short speech – ‘’We won’t do much talking until we do more fighting. We hope that when we leave you’ll be glad we came. Thank you’’.

Soon construction workers began arriving at the base. The British company McAlpine had been contracted to build a top-secret bunker about half-way up the Daws Hill, between the school and Daws Hill House, which had been the girls boarding accommodation. The work was completed in eleven months at a cost of £250,000. The bunker had an area of 23,000 sq ft, was built as a ‘stepped-box’ on three levels, was 47 feet deep with a 10-foot reinforced concrete covering – all under a further 25-foot depth of earth.

Pinetree and the bunker would be at the heart of operational coordination for the precision daylight bombing offensives by America against Nazi Germany. The RAF Bomber Command undertook similar offensives at night.

The inside of the bunker was described thus ‘’It consisted of three stories underground with an entrance about halfway up the hill from (what was) the girls’ school. In the ‘underground’ was a huge Operations room. The Map Room and the Weather Room were two stories high with a large map on the wall.

There were several other working rooms, a small snack room and two switchboard rooms. There was a main switchboard on the bottom level and an operations switchboard in a room on the second level.

The bunker had armed guards at the main entrance and you had to show your identification dog-tags to get in. It was a large cement entrance with a large heavy door. There were guards all around the area on the way to the entrance’’.

On July 28 1942 the first party of 130 American servicewomen arrived at Pinetree. They were members of the Womens’ Army Air Corps and served as photo-technicians, switchboard and teletype operators, and many other jobs. The base was reported to be handling up to 14,000 calls a day and was the largest telephone switchboard in England.

In June 1944 Lt General James H Doolittle replaced Ira Baker in command of the base. In August 1944 the 325th Photographic Wing (Reconnaissance) was also based at Pinetree, and became the largest physical presence. Commanding the 325th was Col. Elliott Roosevelt, the son of the US President Franklin D Roosevelt. Col. Roosevelt had flown more than 300 combat missions and been awarded the DFC and two Purple Hearts.

Several film stars served at Pinetree whilst on active duty with the USAAF, including James Stewart and Clark Gable. On July 29 1944 the Glen Miller band gave a concert at the base. Some 4,000 attended, mainly those serving there, but also by a few lucky locals! Only a few months later a plane with Glenn Miller on board disappeared over the Channel.

Following the surrender of Germany on May 6, 1945, the war in Europe ended, with V-E Day being declared for May 8th. Five days later, May 15, King George VI travelled to High Wycombe with Queen Elizabeth to visit Pinetree, as guests of the USAAF.

On February 23rd 1946 Lt General Ira C Eaker was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of High Wycombe, in recognition of the base’s important war-time role. A similar honour had been conferred earlier in the month on the Marshall of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur T Harris.

The original Wycombe Abbey buildings at Pinetree, excluding the bunker site, were handed back to the school shortly after V-E Day. It took another six months for make them fit for occupation by the girls and staff, so the school did not move back until early in 1946.

Camp for the homeless

The bunker and that part of the base off Daws Hill Lane was closed in 1946. Later that year the residential ‘huts’ started to become an unofficial ‘housing scheme’. Homeless people, mostly from Wycombe but some from as far away as London, took possession of them.

The huts had been scheduled for demolition but the plight of homeless people had become a national problem, so they were allowed to stay. Repairs were carried out to make the huts weatherproof, and to restore the sanitary arrangements to a satisfactory condition, and electricity was laid on.

The Borough took over the administration and rents were determined. The tenants were added to the housing list, so that as individual families were rehoused their accommodation at Daws Hill could be demolished to prevent further unauthorised use.