I live in Suffolk, England, and every time I drive up to Norwich on the main road I drive past Eye (to the right) and the remains of the airfield. One thing I always wonder about. To the left of the road is the remains of a hardstanding. I wondered if the planes always came back to the same hardstand after a mission - and hence if I could ever find out which plane(s) used this one?
 
Thanks in advance
 
Paul

Paul,

I believe that planes generally were assigned to the same hardstand. I know a fellow who was a crew chief with the 490th from August, 1944 till the end of the war. I'll e-mail him and see if he can shed any light on this. It might be helpful if you could provide more detailed information regarding the location of this particular stand.

I'm attaching--I hope--a satellite shot of Eye from Mark Brotherton's E. Anglia Air Bases website. Maybe you could give a more specific description of the location?

Reed


[image]local://upfiles/8644/F55A9C89C156491FB293A5BBEA6E5452.jpg[/image]

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Paul,
   To me, it appears that you are referring to hardstands # 46 & 47.  I assume you are driving up Hwy A 140.  Since the 490th BG has no active Association, finding which ac was parked there may be difficult.  Since there is no Email contact for the Mighty Eighth Museum near Savannah, you might try the 8th AF Museum at Barksdale AFB.  If they can't answer your question, perhahaps they can put you in touch with some member of the 490th.  Email: 8afmusassoc@bellsouth.net
Hope this helps,
Hugh
 

Hi Reed
 
You can see the hardstand to the left of the airfield.  There is a road that heads north coming from the bottom centre of the picture.  It curves slightly around the western edge of the field before heading NE.  The hardstand stands out in white against a patch of darker green by the road, immediately below the 'T' shaped field. 
 
(I used Google Earth, and you can zoom in pretty neatly using this!).
 
Any further info appreciated, especially if it confirms Hugh's post that it may be stands 46 and 47.
 
Paul

Thanks for the info Hugh.  I did a Google Earth on the airfield, and it seems to be the only stand remaining next to the A140, to the west of the field. 
 
Thanks for the contact information, I will follow it up.
 
Paul

Paul,

It does look like they are numbers 46 and 47 (46 the one on the lower left, and 47 the one on the upper right). I'll e-mail  the crew chief and see if he can remember at least which squadron used that area. (There likely would have been a few planes that used those stands, but they may very well have been consistently used by one of the squadrons.)

Reed

Hi Paul
 
I am the current 490th BG Historian and can let you know which aircraft used these hardstands and the pilots assigned  for missions day to day
 
Contact me on eric.490thbg@btinternet.com and I will pull the information together
 
Bye for now Eric

Reed
 
Any help or information would be much appreciated! 
 
When you mention the crew chief, would he and his crew be responsible for all the aircraft that used these stands all the time?  Was a crew chief assigned a plane (or planes) or a hardstand?  (Sorry for my ignorance here).
 
Regards
 
Paul

Paul,

Early in 8th AF operations, a maintenance crew was assigned to a particular plane, which I think was generally assigned to a particular hardstand. The maintenance crews often had makeshift shacks right on the flightline, due to the long hours they put in repairing and servicing their planes. I think they probably slept the least of anyone at the bases.

Eventually, this practice was found to be inefficient and/or impractical, and maintenance crews worked on whatever plane came down the pike. Exactly how that was determined, I don't recall and am unable to find my original source. There may been some specialization. I imagine somone on the forums can tell us. (As you can tell, I'm not overly blessed with the details here myself.)

I heard back from the 490th crew chief, Matt. He said he was assigned to the 850th BS, and says the field he was actually on was near Duess (sp?). Does that ring a bell with you? (I did notice on the airfield map of Eye in one of Freeman's books, it did look like there were stand areas for only 3 squadrons.) He was going to talk to his friend that was another crew chief with the 490th.

When Matt was at the 492nd BG in North Pickenham, he was assigned to only one plane, the B.T.O. (Big Time Operator). He still keeps in touch with the surviving crew members, the co-pilot and one of the gunners. He was awarded the bronze star while at Eye for 54 missions without an abort.

It looks like Eric will be able to give you the information  you were originally seeking. 'Amazed' is an overused word these days, but... I'm always amazed at the resources on these forums. I would never have thought someone would have records showing which planes were serviced on particular hardstands. 'Amazing'.

Reed

Paul,
In my time and place (which is the only thing I know about) each plane had its own assigned hardstand.  Each plane had an assigned crew chief...it was his plane as they were quick to tell you if it got damaged.  He lived in a makeshift hut along side the plane.  These were individual expressions of each chief's inventiveness from bomb boxes, wrecked aircraft or what ever he could obtain legally or otherwise.  Most had coke or oil buring stoves to keep the huts somewhat livable.  We would wait in them when we had to spend time before take-off to keep warm during the English winter. 

Bob Gilbert
Ball Turret Gunner, Goldin crew
381st Bomb Gp., 533rd Bomb Sq.
US 8th Air Force

Thanks for the interesting info, Bob.  I am picturing now a mini shanty town dotted around Ridgewell's perimeter track! 
 
Did the rest of the ground crew manage to squeeze into the shack as well?!
 
How many ground crew was a crew chief responsible for, Bob?  Was there a crew that was sort of 'full time' devoted to that plane?
 
Paul 

Hi Reed
 
Thanks for the information, very interesting.  'Duess' must be Diss, a small town 2-3 miles NW of the base, the nearest decent sized place in fact.  Matt must have gone from B17s to B24s then?  How many guys did a crew chief have under him, do you know?
 
You're certainly right about the great info avilable here.  Eric has been very helpful.
 
Paul

Paul.
The crew chief's hut was his private abode.   
To my memory the others who worked and serviced the plane lived elsewhere.  Hopefully someone with ground support background will answer your question on others involved.

Bob Gilbert
Ball Turret Gunner, Goldin crew
381st Bomb Gp., 533rd Bomb Sq.
US 8th Air Force

Hi, Paul,

Matt actually went from B-24's at the 492 BG (North Pickenham) to B-17's at Eye.

I heard back from him, and he and his crew were assigned to only one B-17 at Eye, the Old Doc Stork. (Based on other answers here, it looks like the general rule was one plane per ground crew. I did read in one of Freeman's books—and another reference somwhere—that this changed at some point, but Matt was there for the duration and had only one assigned plane at each group.)

I'm attaching a picture of Matt and at least some of his crew standing in front of their shack at North Pickenham. I've got pictures of him with Old Doc Stork, as well as a tent they lived in at Eye. If that turns out to be the equivalent of the shack, I'll post it, too. (There's also a picture of all the ground crews standing in front of a B-17 at Eye. I can post it, too, if there is any interest.)

I hope we'll hear from some other crew chiefs. I know another fellow who lives near Boston (492nd and 467th), but I'll have to snail mail him. Matt, on the other hand, is 89, e-mails and scans all his pictures, even setting them up as a slide show. I've asked him some of your other questions, and will post when I hear back.

Reed

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An excellent and interesting question, Paul. I'd never actually thought of this myself, but would imagine the same aircraft would use the same hardstand until it was either lost or retired.

Alexandre Jay

http://ww2artist.blogspot.com/

Hi Reed
 
Thanks again for the information and the geat photo.  I'd like to see any more pics you have, please post them or email them.  And any more information you come across I would be interested in.
 
Paul

Paul,

I heard back from Matt. He said that he had 3 men assigned to him. He also said he got three different guys when they were transferred from North Pickenham to Eye.

Glad you enjoyed the picture. I'll put up 4 or 5 more here, and if there's general interest, others. Otherwise, I'll be glad to e-mail others to you.

This first one is a picture of/from Matt's tent at Eye, winter '44-'45. Looks like they had to be a hardy bunch.

All photos courtesy of Matthias Schillen.

Reed

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Paul,

Here is Matt's assigned plane, Old Doc Stork, with flight crew and ground crew. Since Matt said he had only 3 directly assigned to him, and there far more ground crew here, perhaps some were specialists assigned across aircraft?

Matt is second from right in back row.

Again, photo courtesy of Matthias Schillen.

Reed

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Paul,

Here is a winter shot. A bike in foreground. B-17 in background probably had orange band on top of tail. Maybe white band below the orange.

Photo courtesy of Matthias Schillen.

Reed

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Paul,

Another shot from Eye/Diss. Kitchen and movie house. The ubiquitous bicycles are there, in a season when they were much more useful than the previous post.

Photo courtesy of Matthis Schillen.

Reed

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