On August 28, 1943, my father and the crew of his B-17, left the US and flew their bomber to Ridgewell Airbase in Essex England where they joined the 533^rd Squadron of the US 8^th Air Force’s 381^st  Heavy Bomb Group  stationed there.

RAF Ridgewell Airbase was originally a Royal Air Force (RAF) base located 60 miles northeast of London.  In June of 1943 the US 8^th Air Force chose Ridgewell for the site of its 381^st Heavy bomb group.  Three runaways were added to support the massive Flying Fortress B-17 Bombers, two hangars were added and accommodations built for 3000 men. 

My father (kneeling far right) and crew: 533rd Squadron, 381st Heavy Bomb Group, Ridgewell Airbase

The Ridgewell Airbase was built quickly, its buildings were steel Nissan huts where crews were housed together.  The base had a hospital, mess halls, Officers Clubs, recreation fields including tennis courts,  a movie theatre, and a chapel. Most of airmen bought bicycles to get around the massive base and to surrounding villages.  My father wrote my mother that he got a bicycle but added it was harrowing to ride a bicycle back from the nearby pub at night as the blackout made the road pitch black and it was easy to get lost. 

Bicycles outside a Nissan arracks at Ridgewell

Relaxing in the Officers Club.

Today parts of the runways remain and you can stand on them and see the surrounding fields just as they looked when my father climbed into his plane and took off east to the English channel.

Life on the airbase followed a pattern.  On mission days crews would be awakened in the early morning hours for debriefing, fed a hearty breakfast and then ferried to their planes.  The roar of the planes as the squadrons ascended, then grouped together in tight formations for safety and headed east over the English countryside to join other heavy bomb groups from surrounding bases created a massive formation.  George wrote to my mother that  “When all the squadrons take off, we join up together in the sky into these huge formations and there are bombers above us and below us for as far as you can see.  It is impressive.” 

The missions were harrowing. Once over Germany the crews faced endless Flak and dangerous Luftwaffe Fighter pilots.  At the time my father was flying, 1943 and early 1944, the chances of completing 25 missions were stark.

In the strategic bombing campaign in Europe during World War II the 8^th Air Force, to which the 381st belonged, suffered the highest number of casualties of any single American military organization-over 47,000 (half the WWII casualties of the entire US Army Air Forces). This included more than 26,000 killed, 21,000 POWs and 5,100 aircraft lost.  In the 297 missions the 381st flew, there were 1,407 personnel casualties, 619 dead/missing, 131 B-17 losses and 686 became POWs.

     More airman with the 8th Air Force lost their lives than the entire Marine Corps, whose enrollment included 250,000 more people. Strictly measuring the mortality rate for the 210,000 air crewmen the casualty figure soars to 12.58% and in addition, 21,000 from the 8th Air Force wound up in prisoner of war camps. Of those who flew the original twenty-five mission bomber tour in 1942-1943, just 35% survived, the twenty-five to thirty mission requirements of 1944 saw 66% completed.

Returning from a mission brought the airmen some relief of the stress of flying.  The men went through debriefing and tried to do things to reduce their stress.  For airmen at Ridgewell, according to the Director of the 381^st Commemorative Society, the men headed to the local pubs. The nearest pub to the 381^st was the White Hart in nearby Great Yeldham which is still there  today, much as it looked in 1943 when my dad drank ale and played darts there.

My father’s plane was shot down on January 11, 1944 while bombing the Focke Wulf Aircraft factories in Oschersleben Germany.  It was his 16^th mission.  He never returned to Ridgewell.