大象传媒

In June 1943, the 94th USAAF bomb groups B17 Flying Fortresses arrived at Rougham Airfield. The airfield was built and opened in 1942 and was home in turn for the A20 Boston Bombers and Marauder Bomber until the 94th bomb group arrived.

Mainly due to our age. Eight and nine year olds, we had shown no interest in the happenings at Rougham until the word had got around amongst school friends that 鈥楾he Mighty Eighth鈥� were using the airfield and the largest bombers in the world were flying operations on a daily basis. The airfield was only two miles or less outside Bury St Edmunds within easy reach for an energetic bunch of boys.

We had quickly caught on to the fact that there were a great number of American servicemen appearing in and around Bury and that they had a considerable amount of wealth which in our eye鈥檚 meant candy and chewing gum, the likes of which we had never seen before as food rationing was a way of life at that time.
Our older friends realised that American cigarettes were plentiful as well, king sized, cheap and available. Camel was the favourite brand putting the good old British Woodbine to shame. Until this time the only affordable smokes available to the boys were made from 鈥済utter mixture鈥� tobacco gleaned from used butt ends found lying in the gutter, the tobacco was shredded from these and stored in old tobacco tins cigarette papers which only cost a penny a packet were purchased and also stored in the tin. These were the makings of roll your own cigarettes. These were made as thin as possible ensure that the tobacco store would last as long as possible.

The younger lads only had the candy and gum in mind, chewing gum the main priority. The shouts of 鈥渁ny gum chum鈥� were heard all over Bury as Americans past through on there lorries or were walking in the streets. I remember making my way with my friends along Risbygate Street towards the Newmarket Road when an American transport lorry pulled up to ask for directions, the usual cry went up 鈥渁ny gum鈥�, from the rear of the lorry American servicemen threw handfuls of candy and gum. We couldn鈥檛 believe our luck whole packets which we carried away by the armful.

We had various ideas of how to get our hands on more and varied goodies. It had come to our attention that Rougham Airfield was expanding with more and more service men being accommodated in Nissen huts along side the main Ipswich Road. A small camouflaged town was springing up accommodating hundreds of men all a potential source of a range of commodities. We had a good four-mile walk to get there before we could start our begging activities. The trip was fruitful, we collected tins of meat (SPAM), coffee, sugar, powdered egg and of course the candy. So much that we had difficulty in carrying it.

We set out to return to Bury, it was late afternoon and thoughts turning to the rollicking we were going to get for being late home. A local corporation lorry came along, it was quickly decided to thumb a lift. The lorry stopped, the driver turned out to be father of John Palfrey (Polly) one of our friends. When he saw who it was us he just went mad, seeing us miles from home carrying a whole mixture of food stuffs he new what we had been up to.

We were dropped off in "Prospect Row" where we all lived. The parents and my grandmother were informed of our activities. Dire threats were made that if we ever carried out begging trips again our lives would be made a misery. All the stuff we brought back was quickly confiscated. Needless to say, we had SPAM for tea the next day.

It was summer. School holidays, boredom was beginning to set in. Our minds returned to Rougham Airfield with all the activity of bombers coming and going. It was decided that a trip to the airfield might be interesting we made our way out by Eastgate Street on to the Thurston road. There we found one of the runways running parallel to the main road a matter of only yards from the roadside hedge. The runway was some fifty yards wide, 2000 yards long. Around the main runway was a perimeter concrete track onto which the planes would taxi after leaving the main runway.

Located along side the taxi way were circular concrete hard standings on which the flying fortresses would be parked, serviced and re-armoured.

We found it very easy to crawl through the hedge to get right beside the aeroplanes, nobody seemed to worry about a gang of small boys lying in the grass watching the airmen work. After a while we became a familiar sight as we strolled along the field. We would often find live ammunition, mainly cannon shells, which had dropped from the aircraft whilst re-arming having returned from a mission. The shells were quickly pocketed to take home for souvenirs.

Shells were stored in the wash house at the end of the garden. One particular rainy day, boredom had set in, we couldn鈥檛 go far so we had, what we thought was a great idea, to dismantle the cannon shells by removing the nose of the shell to extract the explosive cordite and to lay a trail to set fire to. John Palfrey鈥檚 father kept a range of tools in the wash house including pliers and a vice. The shell was clamped in the vice and we set about working the nose loose by twisting it backwards and forwards until the nose came off. In the casing we found the cordite, dull grey metallic looking granules. Once we had enough of this we laid a trail along the garden path ten or fifteen feet long, we got some matches from the house, made a torch from a rolled up newspaper, we set fire to this and ignited the cordite trail, the whole thing flared into life accompanied by spluttering fizzing sound and a huge cloud of thick grey smoke. We immediately panicked and ran in all directions with our neighbours running out of their houses, cursing us. We had given no thought that it was wash day and all of the white washing had been hung out to dry. It frightened us so much we decided to dump all the shells that were left, never to attempt that experiment again.

We were very soon back at the airfield sitting on the grass in the warm afternoon sunshine waiting for the first returning aircraft to arrive from the daily bombing raid on Germany. The airman would be passing the time away playing baseball, we occasionally were invited to join in. It was like playing in a giant game of rounders. The baseball bats were almost as long as we were tall, made of wood but remarkably light, we spent a lot of our time hitting at fresh air as the baseball was thrown at us pretty fast. In the end one or two of the bigger lads did manage to hit the ball but never in a controlled way usually sailing away over the hedge.

As the afternoon wore on we could sense tension in the air, the banter and laughter would subside, eyes would be looking across the corn fields, ears straining for the first distinctive sounds of a flying fortress returning to base.

A shout would go up as the first plane came into view over the blue horizon then another then another until the flight circled the field. Those planes with wounded on board would fire red very lights to warn ground crews to be ready to attend the injured. Planes that were shot up, badly damaged, engines with propellers feathered and idle would make there way in. We watched and wondered how planes were still able to fly with parts of tails, wings and fuselage blown away but they did.

Stragglers badly damaged would eventually appear, limping in over the field flares firing two at a time, military ambulances racing along side to collect the dead and wounded. Late in the afternoon the excitement had gone, every one new that for that day no more planes would be returning.

One experience still stands out in my mind was that of a lone flying fortress circling to the southwest of the airfield, we were standing on a mound of earth watching its progress.

The sun was setting highlighting two parachutes had suddenly appeared from the aircraft, drifting down to the fields below. We could see a small fire burning, not being sure if was in the wing or the fuselage, the distance was too great, but within seconds the flying fortress erupted in a huge explosion and ball of fire, it literally fell from the sky. We all stood and looked at each other not believing what we had seen it was like watching a film. At that precise moment we realised that the war was not a great game or adventure laid on for us just for the summer holidays.

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