JUNE 1992 385th BGMA NEWSLETTER Page 3 1942 1992 EDITOR'S NOTE: served, we know you'll find the stories interesting. Inciden­ We're just back from the trip to England. Just in time to add tally, they're printed without permission, which we're sure the following stories to the June Hardlife. It is reprinted from would have been granted. the East Anglian Times of Monday, May 18th. While the stories aren't necessarily about the 385th-except for the one We'll have complete coverage of the trip in the next issue of about the dedication of the stained glass window at "our" Hardlife Herald. Church, they catch such a complete flavor of the era that we W ar veterans gather for dedication Dennis, Bishop of St. Nostalgic Edmundsbury and Ipswich. It is one of a host of events and reunions being return to held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of America entering the base for Second World War. The 385th Bombardment Group was first based at U.S. fliers Great Ashfield in June 1943 and left two years later. During that time they lost 400 airmen and 160 aircraft. It was on one of the many AMERICAN war missions flown from the veteran George base that Mr Salvador saw a Salvador returned to plane piloted by fellow his old Suffolk base at airman Paul Van Boven get the weekend and met a shot down. “I thought he was dead, said Mr comrade he last saw Salvador. “But he was a being shot down over prisoner of war and now I Germany almost 50 have met him again.” years ago. The visit to Great Mr Salvador was among Ashfield was a time of more than 100 members of nostalgia for the veterans. the 385th Bombardment Geoffrey Steward, a local Group Reunion Association teenager during the war, revisiting their wartime base said the village had at Great Ashfield, near welcomed the Americans. Bury St Edmunds. “When they lost planes we They arrived in the were very upset. We used to village on Saturday where count them out in the they joined local residents morning and count them for a service of dedication back at night,” he said. of the 385th memorial Mr Ian McLachlan, the window at All Saints group’s British historian, Church. said the visit was the first The window, which was time many veterans had designed and made by returned to Great Ashfield Surinda and Rowland since the war. The idea of having a Warboys, was dedicated stained glass window in during a service conducted memory of fallen colleagues by the Right Reverend John came about after the group decided to fund a Joy Brice by the memorial stained glass window dedicated by the Bishop of replacement window for the St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich on Saturday at Great Ashfield Church church. Page 4 385th BGMA NEWSLETTER JUNE 1992 1942 1992 Glad to welcome the boys back here again runways being built,” she says. most isolated in that part of the Fortresses, and had a glorious ONE who is glad to wel­ “It was a Liberator base, so they Suffolk-Norfolk borders, that time on their Thanksgiving Day. come the veterans back on were for ever flying over our made it easier to cope with those “Strawberries and ice cream in the 50th anniversary of heads, or when there were early- long days of hard work, harvest­ November? Who would have their arrival is Joan Mil­ morning missions flying over the ing, sugar beet pulling, etc. thought it possible in those days of hostel before we were out of bed. rationing! lyard, of 29 Elmhurst Drive, We used to sing 'Off they go out “They were after all ‘boys’ “Never run the Americans Ipswich, who was in the into the wide blue yonder’. away from home, helping with the down she adds. “There are good Women’s Land Army and “We knew lots of those guys, war effort. I remember one of and bad in all nationalities. Some living in a hostel near the they really were wonderful. They those time we were taken by truck of the girls did marry the boys airfield at Flixton in 1942. treated us with the utmost respect, to the US base at Parham, where they met and went to the USA to and invited us to parties on the we saw and danced to Glenn Mil­ live very happy lives; I do keep in “While working in the sur­ camp. Our hostel being one of the ler and his orchestra, saw the touch with some.” rounding fields we watched the Night fighters followed bombers home from raids ON one occasion the American bombers were attacked by German intruders as they approached their own stations, and some were shot down, as 82-year-old Mr A Simmonds, of Church Road, Elmswell, recalls. “One morning when the Yanks came home in the early hours they put all their landing lights on as usual,” he says. “But some German fighters had followed them home and shot several of the American bombers down. To see all the planes going round with their lights on was like a circus. “The Yanks used to go into our pubs and throw their money around. In one pub near Eye there was an old boy they called Dafty. The Yanks would offer him a penny and a shilling, and he’d always take the penny. This caused great amusement among the Yanks; they’d shout ‘Hey, landlord, get this man another pint’ — this would happen several times each evening. as a girl of 12 with a baby Luxury of brother she was not allowed to waste soap by blowing that special bubbles. “We had to economise on the soap (in the tin tub floating soap then),” she remembers. “The Americans gave us IT was not only gum and A 95th Bomb Group B-17 Flying Fortress under attack by two Luftwaffe FW190 candies that Americans were soap. I’ll never forget it as it fighters over Germany in October, 1943 able to contribute to East floated on my small Anglian households in brother’s bath and he always wartime. Mrs. P.J. Day, of wanted ‘the floating soap’, a KnodishalL, remembers that real luxury for my family.” JUNE 1992 385th BGMA NEWSLETTER Page 5 This battle-damaged B-17F crashed at Wllby, near Stradbroke In Suffolk, on January 7,1944, on its return from a raid on Ludwlgshaven In Germany German propaganda failed Mr S A Pepper, of and of quite a number of the East Anglia, you might think, but her face, and the American Lushington Road, married ones as well! the German propaganda machine sergeant starting to dress. The “I wonder if people realise that saw a great chance to exploit any caption was “While you are Manningtree, writes that their immense influence on the animosity that might exist between away”, and the text said that when he was stationed at area was to be used much later in the Allies. We had already been “Lease-Lend” was extending to RAF Wattisham 50 years another theatre of war with very subjected to a shower of leaflets include our women. Other leaflets ago he was well able to see evil intent by the enemy. During mixed in with HEs, in which we showed the couple on the bed, the effect of the invasion of the Italian campaign thousands of were informed of the death and with the caption ‘You Americans us were on the Anzio beachhead, destruction of British cities' by the are sooo different!’ East Anglia by American overlooked by the enemy on three great German air force, and of the “Fortunately the leaflets did servicemen. sides and with the sea behind us. folly of grasping in friendship the not drive a wedge between the “It is indeed common “The Americans were not hand of Russia, stained with the Allied forces; in fact they almost knowledge that their charm and to performing well at Cassino and blood of Finland. became part of the currency. Most some extent their well-stocked PX the promised iink up and “Now for the final coup: of them were tattered and torn, stores soon endeared them to the breakthrough was not going to be leaflets lavishly illustrated with a but the Americans were keen to female population,” he says. the easy task that most people picture of an English girl (a acquire them and in fact paid “They were the answer to the hoped for. serviceman’s wife?) sitting on the good money to buy them from our prayers of most of the single girls, “A far cry from the Yanks in bed with nothing save a smile on lads.” Running the gauntlet of the GIs IN those wartime years Ipswich weddings and funerals and were American bases, and American giiinpbc ui him, but the rumour was the goal of many American seldom used at any other time. servicemen would pull aboard any turned out to be unfounded. women or girls who could be “The Yanks represented servicemen at a weekend. Mrs “1 worked in the middle of persuaded to travel to a dance at glamour in a dreary wartime Margaret Roche, of St. Andrews Ipswich, coming in daily from Road, Felixstowe, recalls how off- the base. They were, of course, world. They gave the children gum Felixstowe by the Blue Coach bus, returned to Ipswich by the same to chew, they proffered candy and duty GIs sat around on the and with my companions had to Cornhill and on every possible transport at the end of the American cigarettes to the girls, seating place, rows of them on the run the gauntlet in Lloyds evening.