RAF Eye

RAF Eye, also recorded as Eye (Brome) and as USAAF Station 134, lay in north Suffolk close to the village of Eye, some eleven miles from Stowmarket. Built during the war as a heavy bomber base with paved runways, it was declared operational in December 1943 and was fully occupied through the spring of 1944.

For most of its active life the airfield was an American rather than a British station. It was handed to the United States Eighth Air Force and became home to the 490th Bombardment Group, comprising the 848th, 849th, 850th and 851st Bombardment Squadrons. The group flew its first combat sorties in mid-1944, initially equipped with B-24 Liberators before converting to B-17 Flying Fortresses in the autumn of that year. From Eye its crews struck airfields, coastal defences, bridges, railways and industrial targets, supported the Normandy landings, and in the closing weeks of the war flew relief missions carrying food to the Netherlands and bringing home liberated prisoners.

Control passed to RAF Bomber Command in November 1945, but the station was wound down soon afterwards and disposed of in the years that followed. The site was later redeveloped for commercial use and survives today as an industrial and business park.