Geedee & Rocketeers USAAF B-24 Base Tour - UK

[Geedee]

Yup, we've done another one of our 'trips !

As you may know, I do have a soft-spot for the Liberator (Only 2 more flights and I've reached 100 sorties in Witchraft ), and thought it would be a good topic for one our quick tours where we would try and visit every '24 Base here in the UK. Looked into it on the interweb and found that there were 25 X Base's with 2 down in Devon and the remainder up-Country. Unfortunately due to the distance between Devon and the rest, we couldn't do it in a long weekend so we split the tour into two.

What we found throughout is that the majority of these Bases have all but vanished, mostly to farm land and some to Industrial Usage. Many of them are inaccessible now due private land ownership so we were limited on what and where we could go. We'll go into more details as we report on each Base.

But we did it !.

2 Bases on one day in Devon and the remaining 23 the following weekend over 3 days ! . At each Base, we took photo's of what we could access and paid our respects to The Greatest Generation.

Some of the reports on the Bases will be photo heavy while others only a few shots, this due to access.

We traveled 1150 miles over the 4 days, met some fantastic people, had a few Museums opened up especially for us, battled extreme cold and on the last day, snow to a depth that made trying to get to some of the Bases....was interesting to say the least...and on top of that, we had a poorly car !.

So, where did we go....Here's the itinerary

Day 1(Devon)
Dunkeswell
Upottery

Day 2
Cheddington
Harrington
North pickenham
Wendling
Shipdham
Attlebridge
Horsham St Faith
Rackheath

Day 3
Metffield
Halesworth
Bungay
Seething
Hardwick
Tinengam
Hethel
Old Buckenham
Watton
Fersfield

Day 4
Debach
Eye
Mendlesham
Lavenham
Sudbury

We'll be covering each Base in turn and adding our shots to make sure nothing has been missed. I'll be starting off with Dunkeswell very shortly...stay tooned

 

[Crimea_River]

Looking forward to your story guys.

 

[Rocketeer]

The blog will also be on Facebook. The Aviation Pilgrimage
I think its fair to say its one of the best tours we have done so far!

 

[Jeff Hunt]

Anxiously awaiting this report and photos.

Jeff

 

[Airframes]

Bl**dy marvelous !
Been trying to do a similar tour over the last year or two, in the tin tent, but nowhere near as comprehensive - fantastic effort Gary and Tony.
Maybe we should get together and do a more 'concentrated' visit to a select few, next year ?

 

[Rocketeer]

You'd love it!

 

[Airframes]

Sounds good to me. Was planning an overseas trip, probably to Normandy, with Karl and probably Andy from Canada. However, having to replace my stolen camera gear has more than likely killed that idea, so a UK tour would be a good alternative.

 

[Gnomey]

Sounds awesome!

 

[Wayne Little]

Looking forward to this....!

 

[fubar57]

Me too, bring.....it.....on

 

[Geedee]

Allrighty...here we go

First stop was at Dunkeswell
RAF...later USN... Dunkeswell was originally planned as a Fighter Command, then Coastal Command Airfield but was then transferred to the US forces and became Station 173 It was built to the standard RAF Wartime Class A design for heavy bombers by Wimpey and construction finished in June 43 at a a cost of £1.1M. Initially set for RAF 19 Group Coastal command, the first operations were flown when the 479th Anti-Submarine Group with their specialised Liberators arrived. The Seabees continued to do upgrades throughout the War.

A couple of anecdotes for you, it was nicknamed by the US "Mudville Heights" and the airfield was also used as a glider base for the raids to Germany. The passengers included Americans, including a brother or cousin of the Future President Kennedy who was reputed to have been killed when one of the gliders crashed on take off in to a small wood close to the runway !.

The Airfield is currently in use and has an active flying school a, great little museum, Memorial and a cafe on site. The Museum and Memorial are by the Flying School.

The original Control Tower is still in place but you can't get access to it,so we took a few pics from as close as we could get.

Here's a shot (not our pic) of the Base as it is at the moment

And here's a pic (not ours)of the Site from WW2

On the way to the airfield, I picked up an original engine mount from a PB4Y-1 Liberator that actually operated from the airfield !!!. Needless to say, I took the opportunity to take a few shots next to the Memorial

And here's a pic of the Memorial without a relic in front... Absolutely love the Sentiment !

Then it was walkaround the Museum. The Museum is housed in a couple of conjoined Portacabins and contains a whole heap of artifacts and details about the Airfield and its use during the War. Easily a good hour could be spent here looking at and taking everything in. Here's a few pics...not going to show all so you'll have to go and visit yourself ! ...

One of the Pics showed some crew back in WW2 using a local telephone box. Talking to the volunteers manning the museum, they told us that the telephone box was still in place and about a 1/4 mile form the Airfield entrance...so we had to go and have a looksee and take a modern shot...

There are still a few original building in place but you can't access them, ranging from re-clad Hangars and the obligatory Nissen /Quonset huts...would love to have been able to walkabout but there's no public access.

And lastly, a zoom pic of the Tower, with I think the original MT / Fire section building just behind.Not ideal but we couldn't get around the airfield to see it . What we are planning on doing is contacting the Airfield owners to see if we can get a return visit planned just to see the Tower !.

I'll hand over now to Tony for his pics and update

 

[Rocketeer]

Dunkeswell holds a position close to my heart as it was a sub hunter base and my grandad was a sub hunter, only he was with the RAF flying Catalinas. The most famous pilot was Joe Kennedy, brother of JFK. He flew USN liberators and completed his whole tour. He then volunteered for the Anvil Project at Fersfied. But we will wait til that airfield for the rest of his story. The quarterlight is from a USN B24 or should I say PBY. It came from Dunkeswell and still has white paint on it. You can see the runway thru it. It was nice to see a L4 there and a USN marked up Stearman

 

[fubar57]

Nice start gents

 

[Airframes]

Brilliant !

 

[nuuumannn]

Oooo, goody; this is gonna be interesting.

 

[Geedee]

Sorry, forgot to add in some links to sites with further info, so I'll start off with this one. Has some great wartime pics and tells a whole heap of history about the Airfield
Dunkeswell

 

[Crimea_River]

I love these threads. Good stuff guys.

 

[Rocketeer]

B-24 stop No.2. Upottery Airfield also known as Smeatharpe and Stn AAF-462

Upottery near Honiton Devon was built in 1943 and opened in Feb 1944. It was originally used by the 9th AIrforce of the USAAF. In April, the 4 Squadrons from the 50th Troop Carrier Wing arrived to train for DDay. The squadrons (91st, 92nd, 93rd and 94th) had 70 Douglas C47 transports configured to drop parachutists and equipment. On DDay, 6th June 1944, the famed Easy E company of the 101st Airborne took off from Uppottery and jumped over Normandy. The 101st AB contribution to the war effort and ultimate defeat of Nazi German was epic.
In Early 1945 the USN brought their Liberator PB4Y-1 aircraft (USAAF B-24D, B-24J, B-24L and B-24M aircraft) to NAF Upottery to conduct antisubmarine warfare patrols, primarily in the Bay of Biscay areas. Two squadrons VPB-107 and VPB-112 were assigned to Upottery. The airfield was a satellite to nearby Dunkeswell where older brother of JFK, Joe Kennedy Jr was a pilot.

After the war, the airfield returned to agricultural use. Nowadays, the runways are used by a small flying and gliding club. A few buildings remain, most notably the derelict control tower, motor transport sheds and an accommodation block. We photographed the buildings but later found out that these are actually on private land. Had we known we would have sought permission. So they should not be visited without the farmers permission. The airfield is evocative and has a deep feeling that something amazing happened here. It is worthy of preservation. A date marked in the concrete when the runway was being laid was found. A delightful museum is in a Nissan hut on the edge of the airfield, next to the remains of the officers mess. In 2001, scenes for the epic Band of Brothers HBO production were filmed here. This landmark series followed Easy Company from its training through the para drop over Normandy to the end of the war. By the old airfield entrance, we found a preserved sentry box with memorial.

RAF Upottery - Wikipedia

Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. - Wikipedia.

Museum (this museum and that at Dunkeswell airfield are in the link below.
Home

Pix to follow

 

[Rocketeer]

Photos from Upottery. It is amazing how historic this place is. You can imagine the Libs and then the C47s. Brave Easy Company flew from here to conduct their awesome contribution to the war effort.

 

[Rocketeer]

These photos show the museum next to the old officers club remains. The last photos show the original sentry box which houses the memorials