During the construction of the flying field, 3,000 trees and eight miles of hedge were uprooted while the volume of excavation ran to 250,000 cubic yards. Altogether, some 108,000 cubic yards of concrete was used and ballast obtained locally amounted to 250,000tons.

A NOTE FROM CLYDE
The first aircraft to land on the station is believed to have been a battle-damaged B-26 Marauder returning from a raid over Holland on May 14, 1943. This was “ Too Much of Texas” in which I Clyde D. Willis was the radio operator. I put this in, as I would want my grand children to know about it. And I wanted to blow my horn as on in my story I tell about our landing.
END NOTE

On June 19, the members of the 385th Bomb Group arrived with their B-17 Fortress aircraft following five days later. The 385th was assigned to the 4th Bomb Wing, which controlled the other Suffolk B-17 bases, and flew its first combat mission on July 17. Exactly a month later, when the group was participating in the only direct England- Africa shuttle mission, the base was officially handed over from the RAF to the USAAF.

No. 1 hangar, one of the two T2s on the field, was badly damaged on two occasions. The first time was on Septernber 3, 1943, when a bombed-up B-17 standing nearby caught fire and exploded. Then, on the night of May 23, 1944, a German intruder scored a direct hit with one of the seven bombs dropped, destroying a B-17 in the hangar. The airfield was also strafed by an intruder towards the end of the war.

On the March 6, 1944 raid to Berlin (the most costly mission the Eighth ever carried out) the 3rd Division commander, Brigadier General Russell Wilson, took off from Great Ashfield in a radar-equipped B-17 in a leading group of the 385th. All of the 385th aircraft returned safely... all that is except the one carrying General Wilson which was seen to take several hits from flak setting one engine on fire. Although four of the crew managed to parachute to safety (including medal of honor hero first lieutenant John C Morgan) eight of the others perished when the bomber exploded.

The 385th, 'Van's Valliant’s' as they were called after their first Commanding Officer, Colonel Elliott Vandevanter, flew 296 missions from Great Ashfield and lost 129 B-17s although one of the Great Ashfield Fortresses, Satan's Mate, earned itself distinction as being 'the Fort that looped'. It was on February 19, 1945 during the return flight from a mission to Germany, that Lieutenant James Fleisher began to climb to avoid flying in cloud. As he did so, the Fortress crossed the slipstream of another unseen aircraft causing the aircraft to fall over back wards, the crew being pinned to the sides in a 38O mph power dive. On their return to Great Ashfield, the aircraft was found to have stripped 74 rivets and have strained the tail plane. The group returned to the USA in July 1945, the last element leaving the station on August 4.

After the airfield reverted to RAF control in October 1945, it came under Maintenance Command as an MU site and sub-site for bomb storage before being finally abandoned and sold in 1959-60. It has now been returned to agricultural use by the Miles family, from whom it had been requisitioned, and is currently farmed by Mr. Roland Miles of Norton Hall.

The runways are still intact although piles of rubble on the perimeter tracks are an indication of the activities of the Amey Roadstone Corporation. Hedges which crisscrossed the airfield during the war have now grown to twenty feet or so.

A memorial nave to those of the 385th who lost their lives flying from Great Ashfield can be seen in the village church.