RAF Metfeld
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is located just to the southeast of the village of Metfield
Metfield
Metfield is a village in Suffolk, England, but its name is derived from Medefeld or 'Meadow feld' . It is situated close to the border with Norfolk, being approximately 5 miles south east of Harleston and 7 miles north west of Halesworth...
in Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
.
Metfield was built as a standard, Class-A bomber design airfield, consisting of three intersecting concrete runway
Runway
According to ICAO a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and take-off of aircraft." Runways may be a man-made surface or a natural surface .- Orientation and dimensions :Runways are named by a number between 01 and 36, which is generally one tenth...
s, fifty dispersal points and two T-2 type hangar
Hangar
A hangar is a closed structure to hold aircraft or spacecraft in protective storage. Most hangars are built of metal, but other materials such as wood and concrete are also sometimes used...
s. Additional buildings were also erected to house about 2,900 personnel on former farmland to the southwest. When it was constructed in 1943, it necessitated the closure of the B1123 road between Halesworth
Halesworth
Halesworth is a small market town in the northeastern corner of Suffolk, England. It is located south west of Lowestoft, and straddles the River Blyth, 9 miles upstream from Southwold. The town is served by Halesworth railway station on the Ipswich-Lowestoft East Suffolk Line...
and Harleston.
USAAF use
The airfield was built for the United States Army Air ForcesUnited States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II, and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force....
Eighth Air Force
Eighth Air Force
The Eighth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Global Strike Command . It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana....
as a heavy bomber field. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
it was known as USAAF Station 366. Metfield was one of the most isolated Eighth Air Force
Eighth Air Force
The Eighth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Global Strike Command . It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana....
stations in Suffolk.
353d Fighter Group
The first American occupants of Metfield was the 353rd Fighter Group, moving in from RAF GoxhillRAF Goxhill
RAF Goxhill is a former Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force station in England. It is located just to the east of the village of Goxhill, on the south bank of the Humber estuary, opposite the city of Kingston upon Hull, in north Lincolnshire....
on 3 August 1943. The 353d was assigned to the 66th Fighter Wing, at Sawston Hall, Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
.
Operational squadrons of the 353d were:
- 350th Fighter Squadron (LH)
- 351st Fighter Squadron351st Fighter SquadronThe 351st Fighter Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with 353d Fighter Group stationed at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey....
(YJ) - 352d Fighter Squadron (SX)
Group markings were black, yellow, black, yellow spinners, with a 48-inch black and yellow check band around the cowling to the end of the exhaust stubs.
Equipped with P-47D Thunderbolts, operations commenced on 12 August 1943. It was the fourth P-47 unit to join the Eighth Air Force. From Metfield the 353rd flew numerous counter-air missions and provided escort for bombers that attacked targets in western Europe, made counter-air sweeps over France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
, and dive-bombed targets in France.
On 12 April 1944 the 353rd moved to RAF Raydon
RAF Raydon
RAF Raydon is a former United States Army Air Force station in England. It is located just to the northeast of the village of Raydon, about 6 miles from Ipswich on the B1070 in Suffolk.-Origins:...
.
491st Bombardment Group (Heavy)
With the departure of the P-47's of the 353d, a B-24 Liberators bombardment group, the 491st Bombardment Group491st Bombardment Group
The 491st Bombardment Group is an inactive United States Army Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the II Bomber Command, stationed at McChord Field, Washington. It was inactivated on 8 September 1945....
(Heavy) moved in. The 491st starting arriving on 15 May and the last aircraft arrived on 30 May 1944.
The 491st was assigned to the 95th Combat Wing at Halesworth
Halesworth
Halesworth is a small market town in the northeastern corner of Suffolk, England. It is located south west of Lowestoft, and straddles the River Blyth, 9 miles upstream from Southwold. The town is served by Halesworth railway station on the Ipswich-Lowestoft East Suffolk Line...
. The group tail code was a Circle "Z". Its operational squadrons were:
- 852d Bombardment Squadron852d Bombardment SquadronThe 852d Bombardment Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with 491st Bombardment Group stationed at McChord Field, Washington.-History:...
(3Q) - 853d Bombardment Squadron853d Bombardment SquadronThe 852d Bombardment Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with 491st Bombardment Group stationed at McChord Field, Washington.-History:...
(T8) - 854th Bombardment Squadron854th Bombardment SquadronThe 854th Bombardment Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with 491st Bombardment Group stationed at McChord Field, Washington.-History:...
(6X) - 855th Bombardment Squadron855th Bombardment SquadronThe 855th Bombardment Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with the 491st Bombardment Group, based at McChord Field, Washington. It was inactivated on 8 September 1945.-History:...
(V2)
The squadrons were unusual in it having its ground compliment recruited from other stations of the 2d Air Division. The group commenced operations on 2 June.
The 491st attacked airfields, bridges, and coastal defenses both preceding and during the invasion of Normandy
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
. After D-Day, the unit concentrated its attacks on strategic objectives in Germany, striking communications centers, oil refineries, storage depots, industrial areas, shipyards, and other targets in such places as Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
, Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, Gelsenkirchen
Gelsenkirchen
Gelsenkirchen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the Ruhr area. Its population in 2006 was c. 267,000....
, Bielefeld
Bielefeld
Bielefeld is an independent city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 323,000, it is also the most populous city in the Regierungsbezirk Detmold...
, Hannover, and Magdeburg
Magdeburg
Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....
.
On one occasion the 491st attacked the headquarters of the German General Staff at Zossen
Zossen
Zossen is a German town in the district of Teltow-Fläming in Brandenburg, south of Berlin, and next to the B96 highway. Zossen consists of several smaller municipalities, which were grouped together in 2003 to form the city.-Geography:...
, Germany.
On 15 July 1944 at 7:30pm, the bomb dump at Metfield exploded. One bomb mysteriously detonated, practically setting off the entire munitions storage area. 1,200 tons of high-explosive and indendinary bombs rocked the countryside for miles around. Five men were killed and 5 B-24's in nearby hardstands were severely damaged beyond repair. An additional six aircraft were severely damaged. There is an eye witness account of being blown flat 3.5 miles away from the explosion.
After the explosion, an extended loop road was built to by-pass the crater left by the explosion. The crater subsequently became a dump for all manner of discarded items.
On 15 August 1944, the 95th Combat wing was broken up and the 491st was moved to RAF North Pickenham
RAF North Pickenham
RAF North Pickenham is a former Royal Air Force base near North Pickenham, in Norfolk. It was originally opened in 1944 and finally closed in 1965.-USAAF use:...
.
1409th Army Air Force Base Unit
After the 491st moved, a small number of B-24's were still assigned to Metfield, under the command of the European Division of Air Transport, United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF). These aircraft were used by the 1409th Army Air Force Base Unit, a classified unit engaged in clandestine transport operations to SwedenSweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, flying out special materials and ferrying personnel.
The 1409th operated from Metfield until the end of the war operating the B-24s, as well as C-47s
C-47 Skytrain
The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota is a military transport aircraft that was developed from the Douglas DC-3 airliner. It was used extensively by the Allies during World War II and remained in front line operations through the 1950s with a few remaining in operation to this day.-Design and...
and C-54s. The unit also used RAF Leuchars
RAF Leuchars
RAF Leuchars is the most northerly air defence station in the United Kingdom. It is located in Leuchars, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland, near to the university town of St Andrews.-Operations:...
in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
as an advanced base.
On 4 March 1945, Metfield was strafed by a Ju-88 of the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
, killing one man in the control tower. The aircraft was shot down and crashed just south of the base.
In May 1945, Metfield was closed and turned over to the RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
. It was subsequently abandoned, but remained in the hands of the Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
.
Civil use
Metfield was not used by the Air MinistryAir Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the British Government with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964...
after World War II ended and for years it sat abandoned and empty. In 1964/65, the airfield and support buildings were sold to private individuals.
Metfield was returned to agricultrual use, however the site of the bomb dump explosion could be seen for many years as a water-filled lake.
When the lake
Lake
A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...
was cleaned out, all types of discarded equipment was found, including several unexploded bombs. Indeed, ordnance that was tossed into the air during the bomb dump explosion has been found over the years in the fields surrounding Metfield. Pieces of metal from the exploded bombs has been found scattered over the area to the present day.
In the late 1960s, the main runways, taxiways and parking aprons were mostly torn up or turned into single lane agricultural roads.
Very little evidence of the airfield can be seen today only a few brick buildings, deteriorating Quonset (Nissen) huts, and some concrete roadways that were aircraft taxiways.
Group Patches of Units Assigned to Metfield
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