Tail End Charlie
Nissen hut at Communal Site 6 in the southernmost part of the base.
Through the Thickets in Search of the Genius Loci
Text: Jan Zdiarský
Places with a certain genius loci always appeal to a specific type of person — those attuned to a specific theme, event or memory. Such a genius loci stirs the mind of anyone who is even slightly prepared for it.
For example, I would hardly be moved by a visit to an old house that looks quite ordinary today, even though a significant step in the development of the tradition of Ore Mountain lace was taken there several centuries ago. I do not diminish the value of such heritage, and I have great respect for this art, but I would hardly be moved by a visit. But I don’t understand it at all. While others might hold their breath in awe, unfortunately I remain unmoved.
April 1945 – Maj. Gale W. “Buck” Cleven (later one of the main characters in the TV series *Masters of the Air*) speaks with members of his former squadron after escaping from German captivity. The building in the background is the 350th BS Operations Room.
The same building in August 2026. Entering such buildings today is not only prohibited but also dangerous.
It’s different for me when it comes to those lonely fields and hedgerows among the villages in the East Anglian counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, though. That’s where a history close to my heart unfolded some eighty to ninety years ago, and the genius loci of tiny hamlets or entire regions of scattered farms manages to catch my eye like a hare peeking out from the hedgerows there.
This summer, I had the opportunity to visit the area again, as my museum colleagues and I installed a permanent exhibition at the 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum in Thorpe Abbotts about the unit’s mission to Ruhland - an event that we, here in the heart of Europe, refer to as the air battle over the Ore Mountains on September 11, 1944. We spent several days exploring the museum itself - housed in a restored control tower and its surroundings - as well as the base grounds during our trips to Hoxne, where we stayed in a charming 17th-century cottage.
This used to be Hardstand No. 50 - the spot where the B-17G 43-37517 “Heaven Can Wait” once rested.
The evening sky above the site where “Heaven Can Wait” crashed in January 1945.
We have visited Thorpe Abbotts many times and some of us even consider it our second home. The charm of the place is also due to the people connected to it. With each visit — the first of which took place 30 years ago — we get to know the area better. On several occasions, accompanied by Ron Batley, the museum’s curator and trustee, we have visited the base area where the various 'sites' were located – the overseas homes of the flight and ground crews, support units and all the technical, administrative and operational facilities. Eighty years ago, the home of a US Army Air Force bomber group in England was essentially a small town with several thousand residents and several hundred buildings. By that, I don't mean the airport itself with its runways, taxiways and hardstands. Today, with a few exceptions, none of that remains. But even those exceptions are well worth seeing. The museum itself, of course, breathes the history of the 'Bloody Hundredth'; the control tower amazes visitors with the stories and artefacts it contains. If you know where to look, you can stand on a hardstand where B-17s with famous names and stories were once parked, walk along the remains of the main runway and touch a tree that you will recognise from old photographs showing B-17s parked there.
Part of the base's infrastructure has been repurposed. Farmers use sections of the taxiways and hardstands for their own purposes. The concrete, which was used by four-engine bombers to taxi before taking off into the freezing blue skies above the continent, is still in use and in perfect condition. I am continually fascinated by how, if you know what to look for, you can still see traces of that past in the landscape. Traces of how this area was shaped during the brief period from 1942 to 1945 by the air bases that were built here at an incredible pace and then used for just two or three years.
Upper Street, part of the village of Billingford, which was partially “blended” with the southern area of the base on photo taken between 1943 - 1945, and today.
It took me several visits over many years to understand this landscape and truly connect the old maps and base blueprints with the landscape as it is today. I have always found it fascinating, but despite Ron's knowledgeable descriptions, on many of my visits I would admire the remnants of building structures or bomb shelters hidden among the trees without ever knowing exactly where we were. This year, for various reasons, I have been studying the Thorpe Abbotts base drawings quite extensively, not just the combat operations of the unit stationed there, but also specific locations and buildings, from a distance. When I finally found myself at the site three weeks ago, everything started to fall into place and I began to connect specific locations with the terrain, maps and old photographs.
That feeling was amazing, and it always will be. As you make your way through the thickets and blackberry bushes, you know what lay beyond them. Like the dried-up pond behind the old hardstands, where the ground crews used to throw whatever came to mind on a whim. Suddenly, you can see where the hardstands were embedded in the undulating edge of the grove (and when you enter that grove, you can tell exactly where the old forest ends and the wild growth begins - where nature has reclaimed what belongs to her). If you’re driving from Common Road (where the exit from the Museum joins) to Billingford - turn left toward the south onto a small paved road (Wood Lane), and after a short while you’ll cross the former taxiway (the well-preserved section will be on your left); after a few dozen meters, the paved road will become somewhat bumpy - you’re crossing the area where the main runway used to be, and then you’ll come upon the taxiway again. There, however, today’s paved road connects to the taxiway, and you continue for nearly 350 meters directly on the path once travelled by the B-17s of the Bloody Hundredth. The taxiway concrete is still under the asphalt of your current road.
B-17Gs from the 100th BG taxiing to take off on a combat mission.
A today’s look from Hardstand No. 5 to a section of the perimeter track.
The woods themselves hold many surprises in the form of building ruins, drainage systems, and other infrastructure. However, these are private properties, and entry is permitted only with the owners’ consent. That, however, does not diminish the sense of history you can feel in the area. You can even see some of these silent witnesses to those times directly from roads and public paths. And there are many such places throughout England associated with the activities of the 8th and 9th Air Force and the RAF (and, of course, not only there - I recall my encounter with abandoned airport buildings at the Brandis base near Leipzig, Germany, where, among others, JG 400 was stationed, or my visit to the fields and woods in Welzov and Alteno, where two groups of JG 4 were based for a time). All it takes is a little preparation, some knowledge of the subject, a deep connection to it, and an open mind. The genius loci of that place - whatever it may be - will find you.