RAF Great Ashfield

RAF Great Ashfield was a military airfield in Suffolk, around ten miles east of Bury St Edmunds and close to the village from which it took its name. Although a flying ground had existed in the area since the First World War, the wartime station was built in 1942-43 and opened in June 1943. Rather than serving RAF Bomber Command, it was handed over to the United States Army Air Forces and operated as USAAF Station 155.

Its resident unit for almost the whole of the war was the 385th Bombardment Group of the Eighth Air Force, flying Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses through its four squadrons, the 548th, 549th, 550th and 551st. From Great Ashfield the group took part in the daylight strategic bombing campaign against German industry, airfields and oil targets, supported the Normandy landings in June 1944, and flew in support of ground forces during the Battle of the Bulge. The group earned a Distinguished Unit Citation for its part in the Regensburg mission of August 1943 and a second for an attack on an aircraft factory at Zwickau in 1944.

After the Americans departed, the airfield reverted to RAF use, latterly for bomb storage, before closing in the mid-1950s. Much of the site was afterwards returned to agriculture.