BOMBED and strafed by time, and by vandals, the wrecked control tower at RAF Skipton-on-Swale still stands as a memorial to the men who flew from there, and to the 232 who never came back.

It lies amid the flatlands, the fat lands, of the Vale of York, between Thirsk and the Great North Road. Opened in August 1942, operational nine months later, its crews - chiefly Canadian, volunteers to a man - flew 2,300 sorties, won 132 DFCs, nine DFMs and a reputation for wanting souvenirs to take home. In Skipton-on-Swale, even the parish pump was chained down.

They gathered there again last Sunday, high fliers and old men with wings long clipped, at a service to remember them all, and particularly the night of March 30, 1944.

The Rev Jack Armstrong leaned heavily on a stick, age wearying but years without condemnation. "If God be for us," he read from one of St Paul's epistles, "who then can be against us..."

A sole surviving Spitfire flew overhead, clocks forward and on time to the second, banked, turned, returned, dipped its wings, a salute to Skipton-on-Swale.

Most of the other buildings are gone, though the runways remain on Maurice Samderon's farm as a memorial to Wimpey construction. The weather, cold for the time, might also have seemed familiar to the magnificent men of 433 Squadron, and of 422.

Twelve Skipton-on-Swale Lancasters were among 800 British bombers which took off for Nuremberg that late March night. One was among the 100 planes shot down, five of its crew killed, the other three captured.

Around 300 were present on Sunday, Air Cadet to Air Commodore, most arrived by car but one chap on his bike. Had it been 1944, the Canadians would have commandeered it, through strictly for the war effort - and to get to the village shop, of course.

Men walked silently around the perimeter of the control tower, two plaques marking where ashes were spread, alone with their imaginings.

Two dozen banners paraded, maple leaf once more flying alongside English rose, the only battle now to hold them against a force five breeze. Since times have changed, there was also a Vauxhall flag, one of their garages being among the event's sponsors.

Among those also present were Fred and Harold Panton, who on March 30 every year since the 1960s have returned to Skipton-on-Swale to be there at 9.50pm, the moment at which their elder brother Christopher took off for the Ruhr.

"It's quite a feeling, I can tell you," said Fred.

"As far as I'm concerned, this is a holy place," said Harold.

Christopher, a flight engineer, was on his 30th mission on the night he died. After that he'd have been stood down.

Fred was 13, Harold 11. "I can remember reading the telegram saying he'd failed to return from the previous night's operation," said Fred. "Maurice Fenwick, the lad who brought it up, was at school with me and could probably guess what was in it, anyway. We used to meet Chris off the bus when he came back on leave, walk home with him, our hero even then. I remember it as if it was yesterday."

"Oh yes," said Harold, "a very happy-go-lucky man, our Chris."

Bob Milward, conversely, was at the old air base for the first time, landed from Vancouver in memory of his bomb aimer brother Leo, another of those killed. "It was just something I had to do," said Bob, his own wartime medals clasped proudly to his chest, a single rose in his hand.

Leo, he said, had been an idealist. "Before he went over, he said he'd far rather sit down and have a beer with the people he was supposed to be killing.

"He also said he didn't expect to come home; he was quite sure he wasn't going to survive. That sort of talk made my sister very unhappy, she really loved our Leo."

The rose also remembered his sister, who'd found a rose growing alongside Leo's grave in Germany, brought it home and pressed it. Skipton's five casualties lie side by side, the Royal British Legion simultaneously laying wreaths on their graves on Sunday.

Wing Cdr Ken Davies wondered, publicly, how different the war's outcome might have been "but for the loyalty of our friends and family members in the Commonwealth"; Danielle Rippon, grand daughter of event organiser Peter Ratciffe from Darlington, read a short prayer.

"We remember before you all those who gave their lives in the battle for freedom..."

The Spitfire was piloted by Squadron Leader Paul Day, former Barnard Castle School boy, in his last duty with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. After that they expected two Vigilante power gliders from nearby RAF Topcliffe.

The gliders seemed a couple of minutes late; everyone looked out for the Vigilantes.

They played the Last Post and observed it impeccably, marched past with banners proud and bearers no less upright, smiled at Ripon ATC's black Labrador mascot, Jake's precision no less military.

Fred Panton had brief words from the rostrum - "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming" - then those who are left, and grow old, went to Thirsk Royal British Legion club for tea.

www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/features/