RAF Horsham St Faith

RAF Horsham St Faith opened on 1 June 1940 on the northern edge of Norwich, one of the well-appointed permanent stations built before the war with brick accommodation and C-type hangars rather than the hutted dispersals of later wartime fields. It began in mixed fighter and bomber use — Spitfires of Nos. 19 and 66 Squadrons, Defiants, Blenheim light bombers, and from 1941 the Mosquito IVs of No. 105 Squadron. In September 1942 it passed to the United States Army Air Forces as Station 123, and from January 1944 it was home to the 458th Bombardment Group, whose B-24 Liberators flew some 240 missions before the European war ended. Returned to the RAF, it flew Meteor jets through the 1950s before closing as a military station in 1963. The site is now Norwich Airport, and the City of Norwich Aviation Museum stands on its former edge.