During January, the 36th and 406th Bomb Squadrons of the 801st Bombardment Group (Provisional), commenced training for their new clandestine role as “carpetbaggers” – dropping Special Operations Executive (SOE) and later Office of Strategic Services (OSS) “Joes” agents, and their supplies into occupies Europe. For this role, their B-24s had had their front turrets removed and an overall black paint scheme applied. Before the Bomb Group's departed for Watton and then Harrington, near Kettering, its operational work-up included training missions with the equivalent British operation centred on RAF Tempsford.
Station Briefing Room Building 25
On the 11th of January the 482nd Group earned a Distinguished Unit Citation for its part in a testing raid on the Focke-Wulf aircraft plant at Oschersleben, central Germany. The month also saw “Red” Morgan, Alconbury's Congressional Medal of Honour winner, shot down during a raid on Berlin and taken prisoner.
Radar Equipped Mosquito, Frost
February saw the arrival of the first H2X equipped B-24s and the first De Havilland Mosquito (MM308) for the 8th Air Force modified with a radar nose. Later in the same month, the 482nd lead attacks against targets at Gotha, Brunswick and other industrial centres in what became known as the “Big Week”. During this 6 day period at the end of the month, the RAF and the USAAF dropped some 16 500 tons of bombs on German industrial targets including the ball bearing works at Schweinfurt.
On the 1st of March Station 547, the Abbots Ripton Strategic Air Depot, became operational when the 158 officers and 3269 enlisted men of the 5th and the 35th Repair Groups moved in from Little Staughton. Worked had started on the site in 1943 and included the building of 4 T2 hangars, technical shops, additional hard standings and a taxi-way across the Abbots Ripton road permitting the B-17s of the 1st Air Division to pass between the airfield and the depot. With over 6 500 American personnel now at Alconbury, the streets of Huntingdon were patrolled jointly by the local police and personnel from Detachment “D” of the 985 Military Police Company.
1st Wartime Watch Tower, English Heritage
On the 4th of March, a radar equipped B-17 F “Pathfinder” from Alconbury lead an attack on Berlin as well as a repeat raid two days later when 800 aircraft attacked the city. March also saw the withdrawal of the H2S B-24 and arrival of a second British Mosquito, MM311, to be fitted out like the first by the 8th Air Force Radar Centre with the H2X ground scanning radar set. The 802nd Reconnaissance Group then prepared both aircraft for operations, but sadly the first aircraft crashed in the overshoot at Alconbury the day before the mission, scheduled for the 13th of May.
The 482nd Bombardment Groups was stood down on the 22nd of March after its various radar equipped aircraft had flown 346 operational “Pathfinder” sorties. Although retired to a radar training and development role, the 482nd was not immune to the call to Duty.
On the night of the 1st of June two Photo Reconnaissance De Havilland Mosquitoes PR XVIs detached from the 802nd Reconnaissance Group to Alconbury took radar photographs of the Normandy coast. On D-Day itself, the 6th of June, the 482nd Bomb Group provided 18 aircraft and crews to lead 8th Air Force groups to their invasion targets. During July further radar scope scout reconnaissance missions were conducted by 802nd Reconnaissance Group using H2X radar imaging and the Glenn Miller Orchestra played at the base.
F5 Recce. Lighting Over The D-day Beaches 6th June 1944
On the 17th of October the individual badges of the group's squadrons were approved and the following month the 482nd was re-designated the 482nd Bombardment Group (Heavy). Its squadrons then began their preparation to convert to the B-29 Superfortress. The first B-29 to visit the United Kingdom arrived at Glatton on the 11th of March 1944.
In mid-December the USAAF Groups undertook operations in support of the beleaguered American GIs in the Ardennes area being counterattacked through the snow by a strong German force of Armour and infantry - the Battle of the Bulge or “Blitzkrieg Ohne Benzine”. On the 24th of December as weather conditions improved, the RAF and the USAAF flew some 2000 sorties against German targets to the rear of the “Bulge”. Germany's last offensive in the west was stalled and then repulsed.
Throughout the War Alconbury also played host to a number of communications aircraft including the Dominie, Cessna Bobcat and the Norseman. It was in the latter type that the famous band leader Glenn Miller was believed to have lost his life when being ferried by an Alconbury based example from Twinwoods Farm airfield near Bedford to France on the foggy morning of the 15th of December 1944.
USAAF
