Beard team proud to help revive memorial garden for aerial tribute
A fly-past commemorating the RAF Hercules’ six decades of UK service made a special pass, on Wednesday 14 June, over a ceremony for three of the aircraft’s ground engineers killed in active service.
The crew of the iconic flying workhorse - which retires at the end of June 2023 - made sure they flew over the memorial event at RAF Lyneham, paying an aerial tribute to the fallen engineers.
Our team working on building refurbishments at RAF Lyneham were delighted to be able to show their support by helping to prepare the memorial garden where a commemorative bench has been relocated, honouring servicemen who lost their lives in active duty and the role RAF Lyneham played in repatriating them.
With the aircraft retiring from duty, a commemorative bench at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, built by a RAF engineer to remember three comrades lost in service, needed a new permanent home.
It was fitting to move it to the memorial garden at Lyneham (where the Hercules was based from 1971 to 2011) in time for an amazing four nation commemorative fly-past by three RAF Hercules aircraft.
JERRY MOLONEY
Managing Director, VIVO Defence Services
The bench now sits outside MoD Lyneham's REME Museum where service personnel and members of the public can visit and pay their respects.
The commemorative bench had been outside the ground engineers’ office at RAF Brize Norton, where their section supported the RAF’s four Hercules squadrons - 24, 30, 47, 70.
Ground engineers would often sit on the bench to reflect and think about their fallen comrades during moments of solace.
One of the ground engineers was lost when a C130K Hercules crashed at Blair Atholl during a flight over Scotland in 1993 resulting in the loss of nine crew. A further two were lost during a C130K flight over Iraq in 2005 resulting in the loss of eleven crew.
MAJOR RICK HENDERSON
Museum Director, REME Museum, Lyneham
