Royal Air Force Eye or more simply RAF Eye is a former

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

station located northeast of

Stowmarket Stowmarket ( ) is a market town in Suffolk, England,OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton A2 edition. Publishing Date:2008. on the busy A14 trunk road between Bury St Edm ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

on the northwest edge of Eye and south of Diss.

History

Eye was a standard

Class A airfield Class A airfields were World War II military installations constructed to specifications laid down by the British Air Ministry Directorate-General of Works (AMDGW). Intended for use by heavy bombers and transports, they were the standard air b ...

for heavy bombers. The U.S. Army 829th Engineer Battalion began construction of this WWII air base in September 1942, with the 827th Battalion arriving that December to assist. The 859th Battalion arrived in May of the following year when the 829th Battalion left. The bulk of the work was done in the summer of 1943 with the 827th setting records in pouring concrete while the 859th made their mark in building construction. Additional work was performed by British contractors. The airfield was declared operational and turned over to the

U.S. Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War ...

on 7 December 1943, two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor. On 1 April 1944, the entire airfield was complete and occupied by the 8th Air Force, which designated it AAF Station 134. RAF Eye was one of the last wartime airfields to be built in the area and some of the equipment used in its construction remained for many years after the war.

United States Army Air Forces use

USAAF Station Units assigned to RAF Eye were: * 477th Sub-Depot * 18th Weather Squadron * 329th Station Complement Squadron * 1240th Quartermaster Company * 1276th Military Police Company * 1448th Ordnance Supply & Maintenance Company * 814th Chemical Company * 2116th Engineer Fire Fighting Platoon

490th Bombardment Group (Heavy)

490th Bombardment Group - B-24 Liberator 42-94837

490th Bombardment Group - B-17G 43-38729

The airfield was opened on 1 May 1944 and was used by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Forc ...

490th Bombardment Group The 490th Bombardment Group is a former United States Army Air Forces unit. The group was activated in October 1943 . After training in the United States, it deployed to the European Theater of Operations and participated in the strategic bom ...

(Heavy). The 490th arrived from Mountain Home AAF

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Monta ...

and was assigned to the 93d Combat Bombardment Wing. The group flew

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Thea ...

es and

Consolidated B-24 Liberator The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...

s as part of the Eighth Air Force's strategic bombing campaign. The group tail code was initially a "Square-T" when it moved in with B-24 Liberators. After being re-equipped with B-17G Flying Fortresses, it adopted a red stripe at the top of aircraft fins. Operational flying squadrons of the group were: * 848th Bombardment Squadron (7W) * 849th Bombardment Squadron (W8) * 850th Bombardment Squadron (7Q) * 851st Bombardment Squadron (S3) The 490th BG entered combat in June 1944 with B-24s, bombing airfields and coastal defences in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

immediately preceding and during the

invasion of Normandy Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norm ...

. They targeted bridges, rail lines, vehicles, road junctions, and troop concentrations in France, in support of ground forces near

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Brest in September 1944. The group converted to B-17s in October and operated primarily against strategic targets until the end of February 1945. The 490th mounted attacks against enemy oil plants, tank factories, marshalling yards, aircraft plants, and airfields in such cities as

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

Merseburg Merseburg () is a town in central Germany in southern Saxony-Anhalt, situated on the river Saale, and approximately 14 km south of Halle (Saale) and 30 km west of Leipzig. It is the capital of the Saalekreis district. It had a dioces ...

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state di ...

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

Hannover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

, and

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

. They interrupted strategic missions to attack supply lines and military installations during the

Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in ...

, December 1944-January 1945. Beginning in March 1945, they attacked interdictory targets and supported advancing ground forces. After

V-E Day Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the official end of World War II in Europe in the Easte ...

, they carried food to flood stricken areas of the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and transported French, Spanish, and Belgian prisoners of war from

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

to Allied centres. The 490th returned to the US to

Drew Field Tampa International Airport is an international airport west of Downtown Tampa, in Hillsborough County, Florida, United States. The airport is publicly owned by Hillsborough County Aviation Authority (HCAA)., effective December 30, 2021. The ...

, Florida on 3 September 1945, then was inactivated on 7 November 1945.

Postwar RAF use

With the war over, Eye transferred to RAF Bomber Command on 1 November 1945 as an active station. However, the airfield was gradually run down and was finally sold by the Air Ministry during 1962–63.

Current use

With the end of military control, Eye airfield was converted into an industrial estate with a large factory for processing straw being established in the hangars and former technical site. Later, other industrial development occurred and new buildings were built in the same area. There is a natural gas pumping station in the centre of the former airfield. The world's first

poultry litter In agriculture, poultry litter or broiler litter is a mixture of poultry excreta, spilled feed, feathers, and material used as bedding in poultry operations. This term is also used to refer to unused bedding materials. Poultry litter is used in ...

-fuelled generating plant was built on the site in 1992. It produces 12.7 MW of power and consumes 140,000 tonnes of chicken litter a year and is owned by Energy Power Resources (EPR). Many of the old taxiways and runways remain, along with a T-2 hangar and various wartime buildings in various states of repair and use.

Memorial

A memorial dedicated to those who served with the 490th Bombardment Group during World War II was unveiled on 29 May 2016.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Freeman, Roger A. (1978) Airfields of the Eighth: Then and Now. After the Battle * Freeman, Roger A. (1991) The Mighty Eighth The Colour Record. Cassell & Co. * Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. .
RAF Eye airfield
at Control Towers
Eye airfield
at mighty8thaf.preller.us

External links

Current photos of Eye airfield

490th Bomb Group Forum on .armyairforces.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eye Airfields of the VIII Bomber Command in Suffolk Royal Air Force stations in Suffolk Airports established in 1944