大象传媒

My Grandad, Ernie, owned a farm in Bedfordshire, and the Americans chose his farm land for an air base. Ernie rented the land and buildings to the Americans, and carried on farming around them! They built their own hangars, and two years ago they were the only black hangars still standing in the country.

Walter Nottage, who worked for Ernie, was awarded for his bravery in helping to rescue an air crew who's plane crashed in the field he was working in.

My grandad was presented with a plaque from the air men at the end of the war when they vacated the air field in 1945: 'To Ernest Braddock from the 92nd Bomber group...'

Now, some of the original buildings are still there, and the run way has been used for drag racing since 1966. Last year the Imperial War Museum at Duxford came and took a whole wall down from one of the pig sheds, which had been used as a mess hall, which was decorated by the soldiers with a mural of a Lancaster Bomber in mid flight with explosions and gun fire all around it. It's now displyed in the museum at Duxford. A lot of the remaining buildings also have original murals and decorations on the walls.

Every year the air base is visited by the Americans who served there, which is quite something!

A War Memorial has been erected on the road, flying the American Flag, in memory of the men who served there, and detailing every sortie they went on, which is over one hundred.

The air base was included in the Millenium Book of Odell, which has some pictures and even a map of the Air Base.

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