Bruce Barrymore Halpenny

In the early period of his writing career, Halpenny started out by writing love stories and cowboy stories for the American market under pen names. Because of his specialist knowledge of the Royal Air Force, he began to focus on military history, especially that of the RAF in World War Two, often with deep insights, facts, and personal human interest stories.[6] At one time, he was writing articles for up to 14 military journals around the world, when he was approached by the publishers Patrick Stephens to write the Airfield books due to his vast knowledge and authority.[5]

When he researched the British RAF airfield histories, particularly those of London, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, Halpenny found that public records held very little, if any, information so he had to do all the research himself going back to the very beginning. This helped to unearth a rich source of information, which others have since used, and made Halpenny an undisputed RAF expert.[7] For his research on the airfields, Halpenny interviewed 1,400 people, researched records and letters, and travelled thousands of miles.[8] Halpenny visited each and every airfield he wrote about (some of which he had prior knowledge of from his military days) to ensure accuracy.[9]

His books quickly became essential reference books for all aviation historians.[10] Virtually all of the information was new, in the sense that it hadn't appeared in the dozens of books which had been written about the RAF, new too were the many photographs that were just a selection of the thousands he collected and commissioned.[11] In the opening chapters of his book Action Stations 2 Wartime Military Airfields of Lincolnshire and the East Midlands, there were a selection of control tower photos – this was the first time this had been done in any book.[12]

He also wrote various military themed books from such as English Electrical/BAC Lightning to Wartime Poems.[13] He specialized in the British jets, English Electric Lightning, English Electric Canberra and Avro Vulcan.

Halpenny had been writing ghost stories in the 1960s, and encountering ghost stories in his exhaustive research into airfield histories, when in 1984 he decided they should form the subject of a special book, and so started to add to, and research his 'ghost-mystery' files about abandoned airfields that murmur and whisper with ghosts.[14] By 1984, he had become acknowledged as not only a respected British military historian, expert in airfield histories, but also the expert in RAF Ghosts, especially surrounding airfields.[15] Ghost Stations was born, and in 1986 the first book was published, and proved a best seller as it recounts how "headless airmen and other spectres have appeared in control towers and other Service buildings throughout the country".[16] Such was demand that a second book entitled, Aaargh! was published with over 30 stories, one of which was The eerie mystery of Lightning 894.[17] Aaargh!, was later to become Ghost Stations 2, as more books later followed over the years, and became the cult series of Ghost Stations books.

Halpenny's unique knowledge and position meant that he was also known for accessing and finding information generally closed to the general public and media, especially Ministry of Defence (MoD) material concerning UFOs.[18]

Halpenny always maintained that all airfields are haunted.[19] Over the years, he uncovered a wealth of material about ghostly experiences on wartime airfields.[15] "The evidence of ghosts keeps popping up and is so rich that it cannot be ignored," he said[15] continuing, "You have to remember that 55,000 men of Bomber Command died while operating from Britain in World War Two, and almost all of them met a violent end, so it isn't surprising that dozens of earthbound spirits have been left behind."[15]