The friendly invasion: 452nd GIs inundated English villages

  • Published
  • By Senior Master Sgt. Matt Proietti
  • 452nd AMW Public Affairs
MARCH AIR RESERVE BASE, CALIF. --  Third in a series

Veterans of the 452nd Bombardment Group disagree on how to pronounce Deopham Green, the English airfield they called home in World War II. 

Some call it "Deep-um" Green. Others say "Deef-um." A few proclaim it "Deaf-um" and the rest refer to it as "Dep-um." 

"It should be 'Deep-um,' although most younger people today pronounce it 'Deef-um,'" said Martin Jeffery, 61, a lifelong resident of the area and 452nd history buff. "There has been quite an influx of (people) since the war and the original name has become slightly polluted." 

The base, officially dubbed Station 142, was one of dozens that sprang up in the East Anglia countryside northeast of London that provided a convenient location from which the Army Air Forces and Royal Air Force could launch bombing raids on strategic targets on the European mainland. 

"You couldn't swing a bat without hitting a bomb group," said retired Col. Caesar Benigno, 82, of Yuma, Ariz., a 452nd veteran as an enlisted man. 

The 44th Bomb Group, which flew B-24 Liberators and counted actor Jimmy Stewart among its officers, was based five miles away in Shipdam. 

This portion of East Anglia is known as the Breckland and features villages with sing-song names such as Snetterton, Wicklewood and Spooner Row. The largest community near the airfield is Attleborough, which has about 5,000 residents today but less than half of that in World War II, said Mr. Jeffery.

About 2,900 young American males arrived at Deopham Green airfield in December 1943 and January 1944, with the unit flying its first missions in early February. Though aircrews came by plane, most of the GIs traveled from the U.S. by ship to Liverpool and continued via rail to Attleborough. A plaque at the train station there recognizes the men of the 452nd, "who sacrificed their lives in World War II that the ideals of democracy might live." 

Mr. Jeffery's family was one of about nine who lost portions of their properties in June 1942 when the British government ordered an airstrip built from which the Army Air Forces' 8th Air Force could launch B-17 Flying Fortresses. They were paid for the land but received only a day's notice before construction equipment arrived to start work. 

"They had to do their part and were delighted the Yanks were here because it meant the war would end sooner," said Mr. Jeffery. "If (they) hadn't come, we would have slugged it out with the Germans for another 10 or 15 years." 

He said his grandparents and their youngest son, Mr. Jeffery's father, lived in a farmhouse there and grew wheat, barley and oats, and had milking cows, beef cows, pigs and chickens. His parents met when his mother fled to the safety of the countryside from London to escape German bombing raids on the capital. 

The centerpiece of the base was its airfield, which had a 2,000-yard main runway and two intersecting, 1,400-yard auxiliary landing strips. The station had two aircraft hangars and 50 buildings, including a library and squash court. A constant parade of trucks delivered gasoline to two 90,000-gallon tanks that held aircraft fuel.

Despite the base's common name, no American lived in Deopham Green, Mr. Jeffery said, because the airfield straddles the villages of Hingham, Great Ellington and Deopham Green. The latter portion had no barracks on it. 

Retired Senior Master Sgt. John Anderson, 86, of Granbury, Texas, an aircraft electrician, lived with about 20 other maintenance troops in an openbay hut. 

"It was just another base to me," he said. "We ate British rations. You could tell when they were cooking goat meat. You could smell it a mile away." 

Ground crew members and support staff stayed in the area longer than fliers and generally developed stronger bonds with local residents. Aircrew members were often shot down and those who weren't could finish their allotted missions within a few months and return stateside. 

Aviators were busy flying or resting before their next mission, said Tech Sgt. Arthur Mills, 86, of Lawrence Park, Pa., who served as an engineer and top turret gunner. 

"We saw the kids when they stood along the runway with their mothers and fathers," he said. "We'd put our fingers out the window in the V (for victory) sign and they'd say, 'Go get 'em, Yanks.'" 

A Red Cross club at the base was a frequent destination of off-duty GIs. 

"You'd get a Coke and a cheese sandwich. Nothing special. No hamburgers," said Colonel Benigno. 

It hosted a series of parties with themes based on a particular state. On New York night, Colonel Benigno cooked a spaghetti dinner for 20 men with pasta and sauce ingredients shipped by his mother in Manhattan and meatballs made with beef from the mess hall. 

Though Deopham Green was removed from the front lines of battle, it was not without its dangers. One threat was German V-1 rockets, which were designed to hit whatever they could after running out of a set amount of fuel. One landed near the station's explosives storage dump. 

"You could hear (them)," said Sergeant Anderson. "When it got quiet, you knew it was coming in." 

Two B-17s crashed at or near the base, including one that went down Christmas Eve 1944, killing seven of 10 crew members. 

Men of the 452nd earned a 3-day pass every three weeks, said TSgt. Cleon Wood, 86, of Cedar Falls, Iowa. That normally meant taking a trip to London. 

"I was a bit of the odd one as I didn't drink or run around much with my crew. I usually spent my time walking around the streets of London and when it got dark (I) went to a Red Cross club for a bed and breakfast," he said. "We didn't have sheets to sleep between at the base so it was a great thing to sleep between sheets." 

Colonel Benigno said many young men left base to visit pubs in their free time. 

"Plenty of guys, after a mission, went into town and got loaded, not thinking that they were going to get up the next day and fly another mission," he said. 

Dr. Vernon Williams of the Department of History at Abilene, Texas and Christian University, said an extraordinary relationship exists between 8th Air Force veterans and East Anglia citizens. 

"(Local residents) were watching the planes leave and counting them out and counting (them) back in and seeing death every day and the reality of war," he said. "(The base) took the villages around the base and made them part of the combat front. It was brought home to them each day." 

Dr. Williams is head of the East Anglia War Project, a study of 8th Air Force units. His work includes the 60-minute documentary Deopham Green, which features 452nd veterans sharing their memories of the war and two local women speaking about the excitement of having a military base in their midst. 

"Everything that's happened in their lives since then, and all of the years that have been played out, nothing has been as dramatic, as important, in those villages as those events and I think that explains why it's so important to them," said Dr. Williams. "Their feeling of awe has been transferred to them by their parents and grandparents. Most of the English people who I've interviewed now were 15 or younger then, but (to them) it's like it was yesterday. Tears come easily." 

The movie includes a crying Patricia Steggles recounting the feelings she had when the American GIs left her homeland when she was 8. 

"It was awful. My little group (of) friends, we walked up to the camp and they were gone. Total end of an era," she said. "To walk past there where there'd been...all these young men going about their business, it was just like...almost a ghost town. It was nothing. That was it. They'd gone. It was quite devastating." 

Mr. Jeffery, who was born after the war ended, has led tours of the airfield for 452nd veterans and their families. The buildings are in disrepair, though a few are in use by an auto repair business. 

"They weren't made to last. The fact that (they're) here 60 years later is miraculous," he said.

In 1992, a monument was dedicated at the airfield to the men who served there by the 452nd Bomb Group Association, a fraternal group composed largely of World War II veterans, their families and Deopham Green area residents. Visitors deposit flowers and mementos to their loved ones there. Dan Putnam left a plastic-covered note to his late father, Samuel L. Putnam Jr., who flew 33 missions from Deopham Green and died in 1992. It remained legible a year after he placed it. 

Mr. Jeffery's family reclaimed their land in the 1960s by paying three times the rate for which the government had purchased it. His brother and nephew still farm the property, growing sugar beets and spring barley for making beer and animal food. Today, the airfield is home to rabbits, hares, French partridge, pheasants and a small herd of deer.