opened on to the base and a disused loop of the B660. This camp was evicted in July 1983 but was re-established along Warren Lane bridleway to the west of the station. The original Eirene Chapel was removed but a new one was started on the base, using rubble from the old runway, brick and other material. The foundation stone was laid by Satish Kumar on Easter Sunday 1984. It was never completed. In August 1984, part of the then-unfenced airfield was occupied by a mixed group of environmental activists, New Age travellers, Quakers, anarchists and peace campers. The occupation, and the 'Rainbow Village' that it became, remained on MOD land for nearly six months. A magazine Molesworth Bulletin was printed in a bender. The members of Rainbow Village and peace activists used an area of land to grow wheat which was later sent to Eritrea. On 6 February 1985, 1,500 troops and police were deployed to secure the seven-mile station perimeter for the Ministry of Defence. The operation has been described as "perhaps the most dramatic occurrence in all the peace and anti-nuclear campaigns of the 1980s" in the UK. The troops had been training for weeks in the rapid deployment of a three-metre-high (), six-roll, Dannert wire fence behind which a no-man's-land concrete roadway was constructed along the line of the fence, and a , Weldmesh steel fence was erected beyond that. Floodlights were installed every 100 yards, and Ministry of Defence Police and armed guards were to patrol the fence, 24 hours a day. Secretary of State for Defence Michael Heseltine arrived by RAF helicopter, wearing a camouflage jacket over his suit. The roads around the station were blocked by lorries carrying construction materials and fencing. The cost of the operation to clear and fence RAF Molesworth was in the order of £6.5 million. The only structure left on military land was the Eirene Peace Chapel which had been started by Tim and Bridie Wallis. This was fenced off by the military authorities and was demolished on 14 April 1986. In later years, the Peace Garden was maintained on an ad hoc basis by a network of Molesworth gardeners. A memorial sign was erected in 1999 and replaced in June 2019. See also List of Royal Air Force stations Forrest L. Vosler, (1923 - 1992) recipient of the Medal of Honor References Citations Bibliography Endicott, Judy G.