RAF Bury St Edmunds, [rougham]

RAF Bury St Edmunds, more commonly remembered by the village name Rougham, lay about three miles east of the Suffolk market town. Built between 1941 and 1942 with three intersecting concrete runways, it was laid out for heavy bomber use and handed over to the United States Army Air Forces, who knew it as Station 468. For most of its operational life it was an Eighth Air Force base rather than an RAF one.

The first sustained tenant was the 322nd Bombardment Group, which brought its Martin B-26 Marauders in late 1942. The group flew the type’s first American combat mission against Ijmuiden in May 1943, but a second low-level attack on the same target days later proved catastrophic, with an entire formation lost. In June 1943 the medium bombers moved on and the 94th Bombardment Group arrived with Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, identifiable by their Square-A tail marking. The 94th flew strategic missions over occupied Europe until the war’s end, including the Allied “Big Week” assault on the German aircraft industry and support for the Normandy landings.

The station returned to RAF control in late 1945 and closed in 1948. Its runways were later broken up and much of the land returned to farming, while the technical area became the Rougham Industrial Estate. The surviving control tower was restored as an aviation museum commemorating the 94th Bomb Group.