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Military site : airfield
Airmen of the 336th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group with a clipped wing Spitfire Mk. Vb (MD-A), 1943. Handwritten caption on reverse: '19A. KP. Fall, 1942. Great Sampford Satellite Field. 336th crew by 336th Spit Mk. Vb. Wings clipped by sawing off wing & pounding in board then carving and painting it. MD-A, red/blue wheel. Source -Bill Chick, Megura.'
Chapters taken from “A First Class Group – The 1939-45 war experiences of S/Ldr W.G. Curtin O.B.E (Mil’y) in 11 Group and 83 Group RAF Operations rooms” ( by Simon M. Curtin), and relating to his time at Debden with the Eagles Squadrons
Opened in April 1942 as a grass airfield satellite to RAF Debden, Great Sampford had a single Sommerfeld Track runway and four blister hangars. Allocated to the Eighth Air Force in September 1942, it was returned to the RAF in February 1943, and eliminated as a potential USAAF main base in April 1943, being unsuitable to accommodate P-38s & P-47s. However, it was used briefly as an American satellite to Debden when the 4th Fighter Group was formed from its predecessor RAF Eagle Squadrons. The 336th Fighter Squadron, previously No. 133 Squadron and still equipped with Spitfire Vs, was detached to Great Sampford during September-October 1942. The station was thereafter used occasionally by 4th Fighter Group Spitfire Vs and P-47s until the airfield closed in March 1943. The RAF Regiment Battle School then occupied the station until it closed in August 1944, after which the site quickly returned to agriculture.
Group
Some of the pilots of the 4th Fighter Group had seen many hours of combat by the time they joined the 4th Fighter Group as they had volunteered with the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Air Force. The three 'Eagle Squadrons' of RAF Fighter...
| Date | Contributor | Update |
|---|---|---|
| 27 September 2014 18:02:16 | AAM | AAM ingest |
| Sources | ||
Barry Anderson, Army Air Forces Stations (Alabama, 1985) / Roger Freeman, Airfields of the Eighth Then And Now (London, 1978) Roger Freeman, Mighty Eighth War Manual (2nd edn, London, 2001) Michael Bowyer, Action Stations 1: Wartime Military Airfields of East Anglia 1939-1945 (Cambridge, 1979) |
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