Moving on from Fersfield, we fired up the trusty 'Mail Van' and headed off Thorpe Abbotts Museum.
Why the 'Mail van ?...simples really, we reckon that some of the small little windey roads we where travelling on between the airfields (remember they are only about 10 miles apart !) would have been used for the mail delivery between the bases. We really wanted to be doing this part in a genuine Willy's....but thats probably going to be another adventure in a few years time
So, whats at Thorpe Abbotts ?. This was the home of the 100th Bomb Group. Though they didn't have the highest overall loss rate, the group experienced heavy losses during several of its missions resulting in the group's nickname – 'The Bloody Hundredth'.
Home page
Official Site of the 100th Bomb Group Foundation
100th Bomb Group
The Museum is based in the original Watch Tower and a few Nissen Huts. The grounds are very well maintained and the Museum itself has some brilliant exhibits, very well worth a visit.
Tony and I ended up ontop of the Watch Tower looking out at the flat land...now laid to agriculture... and with no wind, deep blue skies and a few whispy clouds and almost eerily silent except for a solitary Skylark signing away for her worth, it was quite an extraordinary moment. You've all seen the scenes from various War films with the planes returning from a raid, damaged and shot up, wounded and dead on board, trailing smoke, not all the wheels down etc...and I will freely admit that standing ontop of that Watch Tower at that moment, seeing it all unfold in the minds eye was quite an emotional experience !.
There will be quite a few pics from this visit so I'll start my set off with some shots inside one of the Nissen Huts...and the last pic is something unusual I havent seen before ....