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

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It could accommodate around 3,000 people at any one time—we don’t know exactly how many were based at Ridgewell throughout its entire existence,” he said. “It is stated in Roger Freeman’s Airfields of the Eighth; Then and Now that public roads use more old taxiways at Ridgewell than on any other Eighth airfield.” Probably not advice, more an observation: researching is much easier than writing. Anyone can be a detective, piecing stories together like a jigsaw puzzle, but actually forming it into a coherent narrative is much harder to do. Don’t expect to become rich, either. If I was to calculate my hourly pay for writing my most recent book, there wouldn’t be a calculator capable of recording all the zeros after the first zero and decimal point. Having said that, the reward comes from knowing you’ve told a story that many didn’t know before. My uncle was the only son of six children. He’d been sending his money home and he bought his parents a house,” he said. “They had a room waiting for him.” The aircraft took off at 8 a.m. and headed north. The flight was supposed to take about two hours. At approximately 10:15 a.m., the B-17 was on the northeast coast of the Isle of Man at an altitude of approximately 500 feet. The death of Andy Piter, especially so close to the end of the war, had a profound impact on the family, Madar said.

According to Paul Bingley, the chairman of the museum, it was the life’s work of Tony Ince, who had been a local schoolboy during the war. 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. B-17 Stage Door Canteen christening by Mary Churchill. [Courtesy: Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum] When the war in Europe ended in 1945, the 381st returned to the U.S. Ridgewell Airfield was closed and the land returned to private ownership as a farm. The only parts of the base that remain today are the roads and a Nissen hut that had been the hospital. Actor Edward G. Robinson (second from right) enjoys a cigar in the Ridgewell Officers’ Mess, 1944. [Courtesy: Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum]I admire James Holland for his ability to convey military history so well. Unfortunately, I just don’t have his capacity to write the number of books he has. He’s a veritable writing machine. For books covering aviation, I highly recommend Sagittarius Rising by Cecil Lewis, First Lightby Geoffrey Wellum, and Combat Crew by John Comer. Three outstanding books by three very brave individuals. My uncle was one of 31 men killed just 15 days before the end of the war in an airplane crash on the Isle of Man. They were heading to Northern Ireland for a week’s leave.” Deadliest Crash on the Isle of Man Many of the people who drive or walk across the airfield have no idea of what went on under their feet.” Sarah Allen, Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum volunteer

He’d been sending his money home and he bought his parents a house. They had a room waiting for him.” Don Madar, nephew of a Ridgewell ground crew member Bomb Group follows the 381st's path from its formation in the Texan desert, to its 297th and final bombing mission deep into the heart of Hitler's Third Reich. It is the remarkable story of one group and the part it played in the strategic bombing campaign of "The Mighty Eighth." An intimate history of a B-17 Bomb Group at the heart of the US Eighth Air Force's daylight bombing offensive against Hitler's Germany. In February 1942, a reconnaissance party of United States Army Air Forces officers arrived in England. Firmly wedded to the doctrine of daylight precision bombing, they believed they could help turn the tide of the war in Europe. In the months that followed, they formed the Eighth Air Force - an organization that grew at an astonishing rate. To accommodate it, almost seventy airfields were hastily built across the eastern counties of England.Piter arrived at Ridgewell on June 23, 1943. “That day, improperly loaded bombs on the B-17 #42-30024 Caroline exploded, killing 23 people including a civilian. I have my uncle’s notes on the accident,” Madar said. His uncle was not injured in the explosion—he would spend more than a year more at Ridgewell.

According to Bingley, while Americans view all airmen as heroes, the men in the RAF Bomber Command were not seen in the same light, as the attention was more focused on the pilots who flew fighters.While there are other veterans associations and organizations that provide educational support to the children of those who served with the 381st, there aren’t many places to visit where their family members once served. When I was there, Paul Bingley and I found where Andy lived, and when I walked by there, I got goosebumps and started to cry,” Madar said. “It hit me. It was his last residence, where he would last have a smile. 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.” Bingley was surprised. At the time, he was living just a few miles from Ridgewell, “Yet I knew nothing of the base or the 381st. It was the start of a long journey of discovery. The more I discovered, the more I wanted to know,” he said.