RAF Lavenham
About
RAF Lavenham opened in Suffolk in 1944 as a United States Army Air Forces base, Station 137, home to the 487th Bombardment Group. The group flew Consolidated B-24 Liberators and then Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses on the daylight offensive over occupied Europe; its commander, Brigadier General Frederick Castle, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for staying with his stricken aircraft to let his crew escape. The Americans left after the war, and much of the airfield has returned to farming, with the control tower preserved.
Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including Lavenham — Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust and RAF Lavenham — Wikipedia. The text is original and has been written from factual source material; no source text has been copied unless specifically quoted and attributed.
Photographs
ⓘ licence & credit
Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caretaker_and_Farmshed_-_Lavenham_Airfield_-_USAAF_487th_Bomb_Group_(RAF_Lavenham)_-_Suffolk_-_England_(28329694285).jpgView source & full licence →ⓘ licence & credit
assumed USAAF / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:487bg-b24.jpgView source & full licence →ⓘ licence & credit
assumed USAAF / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:487bg-b17s.jpgView source & full licence →ⓘ licence & credit
British Government / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lavenham-3apr1946.pngView source & full licence →ⓘ licence & credit
British Government / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lavenham-3apr1946.jpgView source & full licence →No people are cross-referenced to this airfield yet. Links appear as squadron postings, crews and service records are added.