RAF Hardwick

RAF Hardwick lay in the south Norfolk countryside between Topcroft and Hardwick villages, a few miles west of Bungay. Built from 1941 and opened in September 1942, it was handed to the United States Army Air Forces as Station 104. The medium bombers of the 310th Bombardment Group passed through briefly before leaving for North Africa, and in December 1942 the airfield gained the unit with which its name is forever linked: the 93rd Bombardment Group and its B-24 Liberators. The oldest Liberator group in the Eighth Air Force, the 93rd was nicknamed the “Travelling Circus” for its constant detachments — including operations from North Africa and the famous low-level raid on the Ploesti oil refineries on 1 August 1943, for which it received a Distinguished Unit Citation. It flew more missions than any other bomb group in the Eighth, close to 400 in all, at a cost of 140 Liberators lost.

The station returned to RAF control in June 1945 and was placed on care and maintenance, the main buildings later being demolished as the land went back to farming. Several of the original Nissen huts survive and now house the 93rd Bomb Group Museum, run by volunteers in memory of the airmen who served there.