Party in the Park on 4 Aug 07 at RAF Digby - 9 hr of live music and our wartime ENIGMA machine!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) July 29, 2007 -- On 4th August 07 RAF Digby will be holding the annual Digby Party in the Park. This is the fourth Party in the Park at Digby and upto 5000 partygoers at the previous 3 events have helped to raise over �20,000 for national service and local charities while enjoying a fun-packed day of entertainment for all the family. This year Digby celebrates a 70th anniversary and unveils a new exciting exhibit - the Enigma machine - in the Station museum, open to visitors to the Party in the Park.

On 13th August 1937 Royal Air Force Digby began preparations for looming hostilities, transferring to Fighter Command as a Sector Fighter Airfield of 12 Group. Today, 70 years on, you can discover the history of war-time Digby, and its special association with the 'Y services', and see a brand new exhibit - the famous German Enigma Machine.

With the threat to Europe growing as Hitler re-armed Germany and began to make his territorial claims on neighbours, the RAF's preparations for defending Britain's skies and industrial cities stepped up a gear. 70 years ago next month, RAF Digby was transferred from flying training to become a front-line Fighter Command station, and saw rapid construction of the Sector Operations Room, co-ordinating the fighter defences of a large part of Lincolnshire and the sea approaches. The Station Museum now resides in this original operations bunker.

Most recently, Digby's historical association with signals research and 'Y services' was reinforced when the museum took delivery of a wartime Enigma machine. The Enigma machine was a cipher machine used by Germany to encrypt and decrypt secret messages. The intelligence gained through exploiting this source, codenamed ULTRA, was a significant aid to the Allied war effort and may have hastened the end of the war by two years because of the decoding of German ciphers. In recent years, Enigma has featured in the media after a stolen machine was handed over to Newsnight presenter Jeremey Paxman, and was featured in films such as U-571 and Enigma.

You can view the Sector Ops room, declaration of war signal and Enigma machine in the Museum which is open on Sundays from the first Sunday in May to the first Sunday in September for tours at 1100. Further details via 01526 327619 or Sleaford Tourist Info Centre 01529 414294. The Station Museum will also be open to visitors on Saturday 4th of August during our 9-hour music spectacular, the Digby Party in the Park, which also celebrates our historical roots.

The evening's music will see the afternoon's event build to a crescendo as a Spitfire aerial display, set to the "Spitfire Prelude" remind us of the Digby�s proud history as a World War Two fighter base, at the same time as the music headline act, the Massed Bands of the Royal Air Force, begin to play.

Buy tickets online from �10/�4 at www.digbypartyinthepark.org.uk and by post or by phone from our ticket office on 01526 327684.