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Bomb Group: The Eighth Air Force's 381st and the Allied Air Offensive over Europe

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Remembering the Mighty Men of the 381st Bomb Group This all-volunteer museum in England honors the memory of the 381st Bomb Group stationed there during WWII. At the heart of the Eighth Air Force were its bombardment groups, each equipped with scores of heavily armed, four-engine bombers. These Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and Consolidated B-24 Liberators were soon punching through the enemy's defences to bomb targets vital to its war effort. The airfield and base was opened in 1942 with three intersecting runways of 6,500 feet each, 36 hardstands, hangars, barracks, and outbuildings. During a visit to the United States in 1938 as part of the British Purchasing Commission, Air Commodore Arthur Harris found himself barred from entering the interior of Boeing’s prototype heavy bomber, the Model 299.

Bingley noted that the landlords, Robert and Vanda Root, “have been unstinting in their support for the museum. I started out by writing the daily events of the 381st Bomb Group in diaries for each year of the war.Many of the people who drive or walk across the airfield have no idea of what went on under their feet,” said Sarah Allen, one of the volunteers at the museum. While flight crews were rotated home after a set number of missions—at first it was 25, then it was raised to 35 missions—there was no such rule for ground crews, Madar said, although as the war in Europe was starting to wind down, duty schedules relaxed a bit. There are specialised Facebook ‘groups’ that are now proving invaluable in accessing information or individuals.

The hut has been converted into the Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum, which today, along with several memorials on the property, honor those who served there. The museum is open on the second Sunday of the month, between April and September, although sometimes it will open for group visits and for the relatives of those who served at Ridgewell. The other significant thing for me was the morgue, as morbid as that sounds, as that was the last place they were before their bodies were shipped to Cambridge.Firmly wedded to the doctrine of daylight precision bombing, they believed they could help turn the tide of the war in Europe.

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