Lavenham Air Field, UK
The Swan Hotel with WWII USAAF personal names
written on the wall that where stationed at Lavenham Air Field.
Honor
Roll at the Church of St. Peter & St. Paul
Lavenham. Doug’s
base was near by. This is a beautiful old town of half-timbered buildings and
tiny shops lining the narrow old brick streets. The Swan hotel’s sides were
slanting and sagging from old age. The sides of the bar had many signatures of
service men who were stationed near here but we couldn’t find Doug’s name
although we knew he had visited the bar. The local tourist guide sent us to the
large very old and beautiful church in town where we found Doug’s name listed on
the wall along with others of his bomber group.
Then we drove to the
USAAF base called Lavenham where first we saw a heavily concreted bunker that
was used to guard the entrance to the base. A farmer owns the whole area now
and rents some of the buildings including the tower to private businesses. We
saw some housing and a Quonset hut where it looked like men were repairing an
airplane engine. We also saw the remains of runways.
There was an incident, in
which Doug and crew were involved, in a previous B-17 upon returning from a
bombing raid to Dresden. When approaching in fog to Lavenham base the plane
over-shot the runway. One crewmember was hurt when evacuating the plane too
slowly and the person behind him gave him a push. He landed too hard and broke
his ankle. The new B-17, on its first flight, was totaled.
