Tuddenham
TUDDENHAM: Military aerodrome
Note: The local view was obtained from Google Earth ©. The area view is from my Google Earth © derived database.
Military users: WW2: RAF Bomber Command 3 Group
90 Sqdn (Short Stirlings then Avro Lancasters)
138 Sqdn (Lancasters)
186 Sqdn (Lancasters)
Post WW2: 90, 138, 149 & 207 Sqdns (Avro Lancasters)
Location: E of Tuddenham, 7nm NW of Bury St Edmunds
Period of operation: 1943 to 1946 - then a missile site from 1959 to 1963
Runways: WW2: 06/24 1280x46 hard 18/36 1280x46 hard
12/30 1829x46 hard
NOTES: As Patrick Bishop describes in his book Wings, for bomber crews it was the German night-fighter that was feared much more than flak. “By now the Germans were watching, following them on radar from a string of stations stretched the length of the approaches to the Reich. To confuse the Germans, bundles of aluminium foil – ‘Window’ – were shoved through the chute used for dropping flares to swamp the operators’ screens with a cloud of falso signals. Once the raid was detected, enemy night-fighter took off to circle a radio beacon and await orders from a central control room.”
Many if not most raids by 1943(?) included an aircraft, (a bomber type typically a Vickers Wellington?), carrying German speaking crew to issue confusing instructions to the German night-fighters.
RADAR EQUIPPED
“By mid-1943, the Luftwaffe had about 400 of them fitted with short-range radar sets, which, once they were set on the right track, would guide them on to their target. They were armed with 20 mm or 30 mm cannon, and some with upward firing guns which allowed them to creep up under the belly of the victim’s plane and fire into the bomb bay, which was packed with incendiaries and high explosive.” When such an attack succeeded, usually nothing was left of the bomber crew. Mostly their bodies had been evaporated into a mist drifting down long after the more solid components of their bomber had fell to earth.
“Night-fighters accounted for the majority of Bomber Command losses in 1943 and the first six months of 1944, the most dangerous period in the Bomber Boys’ war. In those eighteen months the Luftwaffe destroyed 1,625 Allied aircraft, against 878 shot down by flak, a ratio of two to one.” This clearly shows that despite these very innovative counter-measures, the German night-fighters still remained highly effective, and, a lot of it was pure luck in some cases. But, this said, with the ‘bomber stream’ method still being adhered to by RAF top brass, it made the task of interception by German night-fighters so much easier and appearing to be purposely designed to aid the Luftwaffe.
HIGHLIGHTING
It appears that in many cases the Germans dropped high intensity flares over the ‘Bomber Stream’ to highlight their targets. A bit like viewing the bombers along an aerial motorway and waiting to be picked off. It was then mostly up to the gunners to spot an attack in time and direct the pilot to ‘corkscrew’. This was mostly a very effective method, but, think about it, would you really want to try this within a formation of other bombers? Needless to say no records exist regarding how many air-to-air collisions subsequently occurred.
ANOTHER EASY ANSWER?
By then, it was easily possible to divide the ‘bomber stream’ up into segments, arriving at the target from a variety of directions over a period of time, therefore making it much more difficult for German night-fighters to intercept being spread over a much wider area. This method, was I believe, rarely if ever adopted.
Some crews, (a small minority), even involving a few pilots becoming navigators, kept away from the ‘bomber stream’ until reaching the target, in order to increase their chances of survival. Quite rightly too.
POST WW2
In March 1945 138 Sqdn arrived, previously stationed at STRADISHALL, NEWMARKET HEATH and TEMPSFORD on secret ‘cloak & dagger’ operations.
This site did serve as a munitions back-up to the USAF during the 1950s.
THE COLD WAR ERA
In July 1959 the insanity caused by the ‘Cold War’ reached TUDDENHAM when it became a missile site. Twenty squadrons of Douglas THOR intermediate range ballistic missiles were based in the UK, with RAF 107 Sqdn based at TUDDENHAM. These units had three missiles each and RAF crews were trained in the USA to operate them. Being just a tad sarcastic, American scientists (mostly idiots of course) had calculated that if the entire world could be destroyed several times over in a ‘all out’ nuclear war the USA would come out the winner!
Utterly mad as hatters, thank heavens these scientists have now disappeared? (Note made in around 2003?) To be replaced by politicians like Tony Blair and George Bush?
In July 1963 the RAF unit disbanded and the missiles were shipped back to the USA.
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