RAF Leiston [therberton/saxmundham]
About
RAF Leiston, near the Suffolk coast, was built for the United States Army Air Forces and opened in 1943 as Station 373. From early 1944 it was the home of the 357th Fighter Group — the “Yoxford Boys” — whose North American P-51 Mustangs escorted the Eighth Air Force’s bombers deep into Germany, winning two Distinguished Unit Citations; among its pilots was Chuck Yeager, later the first man to fly faster than sound. The Americans left after the war and the airfield was dismantled. Little survives beyond a stretch of runway, with a holiday park now occupying part of the ground.
Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including Leiston — Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust and RAF Leiston — Wikipedia. The text is original and has been written from factual source material; no source text has been copied unless specifically quoted and attributed.
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