#Rougham Airfield | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

grem-archive · 2 years ago

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@sundownridge thank you for the inquiry! I've answered what I could. The headcanon I would truly love to share in relation to Alfred's pilot activities in World War II I don't have the confidence to put out into the world. At least not right now.

But gonna be real, I think tired me was far too confident in posting this drawing!! But now you're asking me to talk about my special interest. There is far too much under the cut. You have been warned.

So, gonna make a disclaimer. I made choices regarding his jacket based on old photos of my great-grandfather and his crew, his plane, and other assorted texts and photos he kept/received from his flight buddies. 2 AM me was not about to fabricate WWII USAAF organization, so my hand was informed by pre-existing knowledge. Just spent a couple hours digging through my great-grandfather's records and things he collected for some of this. And checking my dragon's hoard of sources and PDFs and notes.

We'll start with the Eighth Air Force patch on Mr. Jones' shoulder here :D First off, The Eighth Air Force is a numbered air force (NAF) of the AFGSC and is still around today, but it was established on February 22, 1944, after the redesignation of the VIII Bomber Command. This command was one of the USAAF combat air forces in the European Theatre of WWII, engaged mainly in Northern Europe, whose detachment in England was based out of RAF Daws Hills. The "Mighty Eighth" was the first strategic air force that the United States would activate (activated January 28, 1942). The Mighty 8th is made up of Bombardment Groups, Fighter Groups, and Reconnaissance Groups, to name a few of the operations a NAF runs - all of these encompassed by Bomb or Fighter 'Wings'. I'll just go down the hierarchy that I've slotted Alfred into:

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4th Combat Bombardment Wing (Heavy) - Division Symbol: Square.

I cannot find a picture of the proper insigne, but going a step down from the Eighth Air Force brings us to the 4th Bombardment Wing. Constituted October 19, 1940, then activated (as we know it) June 7, 1942, the 4th Wing was moved to England sometime in Aug-Sep 1942, being then assigned to the 8th AAF. It went unmanned until January 1943, having groups assigned to it and beginning combat operations in May with its first attack on an aircraft factory at Regensburg - at which point it was redesignated the 4th Combat Bombardment Wing (Heavy). This Heavy (H) designation denotes the classification of aircraft flown by the Wing, which was the "heavy" bombers, the Boeing B-17 and Consolidated B-24. Because of reorganization in September 1943, the 4th Wing becomes part of the 3rd Bomb Division. This is confusing to explain - so accept my words with a grain of salt.

But now we know what type of aircraft that OP believes Alfred would have been flying. Either the B-17 or B-24. Personally I go with the B-17.

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The 94th Bombardment Group (Heavy) was originally trained for overseas operations flying the B-17 Flying Fortress, flying with the motto: "Cunning-Rugged-Courageous."* Group Letter: Insignia Blue 'A' (over a White Square). Identifiers: Entire tail & horizontal stabilizers of aircraft painted yellow & a red tail band + red chevron on the wings (sources murky on the latter).

Encompassing the 331st, 332nd, 333rd, and 410th Bombardment Squadrons, the 94th Bomb Group operated out of Rougham Airfield at Bury St. Edmunds, England. This was chiefly a strategic bombing group that focused on targeting infrastructure. Flying their first mission on June 13, 1943, they bombed an airdrome at St. Omer, but otherwise aimed for ports, factories, and shipyards. ((OP has a chronophotographic sequence of a mickey run on a ball bearing factory in Kassel, shot from B-17G #42-10935 "The Gremlin's Hotel".)) The 94th Bomb Group would participate in significant operations such as Big Week, D-Day, and the Battle of the Bulge, among other things. After V-E Day, the 94th was assigned to airlifts over Germany, after which it would be returned to the United States and deactivated-reactivated more than once and in several different forms before becoming the 94th Operations Group. Flying C-130s, the 94th OG continues to serve in the modern day.

*Rarely cited with the motto "Cunning-Rugged-Outrageous" or "Results Count".

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Finally, we get to the squadrons. But I would like to dispel some misconceptions on aircraft and pilots. The common belief is that one pilot/crew is assigned to a single aircraft - this is not the case. An aircraft might have a pilot's name on the canopy rail or fuselage, but this does not mean the pilot will always fly that plane. To use my own Grampa as an example, while we know that he was often the pilot of #42-102935 "The Gremlin's Hotel" (denoted as "935" on papers), we have several records of him flying other aircraft, such as #42-102456 "Shady Lady" and others. This can make tracking individual servicemen and aircraft difficult when your expectation is that one pilot flies only one plane.

And service members may be moved around due to vacancies or the needs of the greater organization. At some point, Grampa was transferred from the 331st to the 333rd, though we don't know why. We have pictures of him in his jacket, which bears the insigne of the 331st BS, but we have images of him and his crew where the rest of the men are wearing the insigne of the 333rd BS. They must have lost their pilot and needed a replacement. It was this example that I used as reasoning for giving Alfred two different squadron patches. Again, I colored those at approximately 2:00 in the morning, so I think I was on autopilot - excuse my pun - and gave him these very patches because I wasn't about to go down the rabbit hole to find others. These patches are what I know off the top of my head at any given moment.

Emblem of the 331st Bombardment Squadron - theatre-made. Squadron Code: 'QE'. Squadron Identifiers: Blue engine cowlings.

Emblem of the 333rd Bombardment Squadron. Squadron Code: 'TS'. Squadron Identifiers: Green engine cowlings.

I have to admit that there is not much individual history available on either of these. I have spent a lot of time searching, however, some of the records are either lost or not publicly available. I admit that I haven't been doing as much research as I used to, but I have a list of people I've been meaning to contact on both of these squadrons. Someday I would like to research the 332nd & 410th Squadrons as well, since they were as much a part of the 94th as the squads I know.

[wip] we do a little bit of drawing

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