RAF Thorpe Abbotts

52.3820, 1.2147 — view on OpenStreetMap ↗
Photograph of RAF Thorpe Abbotts
ⓘ licence & creditBritish Government / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thorpeabbotsafld-13nov46.png

About

RAF Thorpe Abbotts, near Diss in Norfolk, opened in 1943 as a United States Army Air Forces base, Station 139. It was the home of the 100th Bombardment Group, whose Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses flew on the Eighth Air Force’s daylight campaign and earned the grim nickname “the Bloody Hundredth” after a series of catastrophic losses over Germany; the group won two Distinguished Unit Citations. The airfield closed in 1956, but its control tower was restored as the 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum, and a small airstrip survives for light aircraft.

Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including RAF Thorpe Abbotts — Wikipedia and Thorpe Abbotts — 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

ⓘ licence & creditAdrian S Pye / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:One_of_the_runways_at_Thorpe_Abbotts_-_geograph.org.uk_-_4432278.jpgView source & full licence →
Former runway on Thorpe Abbotts airfield Top Wood can be seen in the background, the woodland at right is Middle Wood. The airfield has long since been returned to agriculture and the farmers make use of the concrete tracks and hardstandings. During WWII the village of Thorpe Abbotts became home to an airbase with the designation 139, Thorpe Abbotts. It was built in 1942 for the RAF by John Laing & Sons Ltd but was handed over to the Americans. The 100th Bombardment Group (Heavy) arrived in June 1943 when construction work was barely finished. The unit bombed airfields, industries, marshalling yards, and missile sites in western Europe and completed a series of attacks against Berlin in March 1944. The 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum, dedicated to the USAAF's famous 'Bloody Hundredth' Bomb Group of WWII, is housed in the original airfield control tower near Thorpe Abbotts: http://www.100bgmus.org.uk/default.aspx . The airfield consisted of 50 hardstandings, three intersecting runways
ⓘ licence & creditEvelyn Simak / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Former_runway_on_Thorpe_Abbotts_airfield_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1780483.jpgView source & full licence →
Aerial photograph of Thorpe Abbots Airfield, England.
ⓘ licence & creditBritish Government / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thorpeabbotsafld-13nov46.pngView source & full licence →

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