RAF Rattlesden

52.1672, 0.8706 — view on OpenStreetMap ↗

About

RAF Rattlesden, in Suffolk near Bury St Edmunds, opened in 1942 as a United States Army Air Forces base, Station 126. It was home to the 447th Bombardment Group, whose Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses flew more than 250 missions over occupied Europe from Christmas Eve 1943 to the end of the war. The Americans left afterwards and the field eventually passed to gliding; the Rattlesden Gliding Group now flies from part of the old main runway, using the control tower as its clubhouse.

Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including RAF Rattlesden — Wikipedia and Rattlesden — Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust. The text is original and has been written from factual source material; no source text has been copied unless specifically quoted and attributed.

Photographs

Part of former Rattlesden Airfield Parts of this World War II airfield are now used as a rubbish dump for old farm machinery.
ⓘ licence & creditBob Jones / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Part_of_former_Rattlesden_Airfield_-_geograph.org.uk_-_326554.jpgView source & full licence →
Battle damaged Boeing B-17G-35-BO Fortress Serial 42-31982 of the 447th Bomb Group at RAF Rattlesden after a mission whose operational objective was a jet engine plant in Stuttgart, Germany.
ⓘ licence & creditassumed USAAF / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:447bg-b17-2.jpgView source & full licence →
B-17 of the 447th Bomb Group, RAF Rattlesden, England, en route to attack a propeller plant at Frankfurt, Germany.
ⓘ licence & creditassumed USAAF / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:447bg-b17-1.jpgView source & full licence →
Aerial photograph of Rattlesden Airfield, England. NOTE : This version is rotated to place North approximately at top. For original version with East approximately at top see :File:Ratt-7may46-original.jpg.
ⓘ licence & creditBritish Government / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rattlesden-07-may-1946.pngView source & full licence →
Aerial photograph of Rattlesden Airfield, England. NOTE : This is the original version with East approximately at top. For version rotated to place North approximately at top see :File:Rattlesden-07-may-1946.png.
ⓘ licence & creditBritish Government / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ratt-7may46-original.jpgView source & full licence →

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