Consult museum archives. Museums may have detailed information about military groups. For example, if the city has or had a large military component during the war, there is a pretty good chance the local museum will have photographs and records from that time. Bingley noted that the landlords, Robert and Vanda Root, “have been unstinting in their support for the museum.” My uncle was the only son of six children. He’d been sending his money home and he bought his parents a house,” he said. “They had a room waiting for him.” According to Bingley, while Americans view all airmen as heroes, the men in the RAF Bomber Command were not seen in the same light, as the attention was more focused on the pilots who flew fighters. We wanted to go for the 75th anniversary, but the pandemic got in the way,” he said. 1st Lt. John A. Silvernale and crew after completing their tour in March 1944. [Courtesy: Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum] Remembering the Bomber Boys

It is Paul’s passion for the American Eighth Air Force that drove him to co-author his most recent book, Bomb Group: The Eighth Air Force’s 381st and the Allied Air Offensive over Europe. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of the 381st Bombardment Group, Bomb Group has been widely praised as “vivid”, “extraordinary” and “sure to become a WW2 aviation classic.”Facebook may be a resource. There are many groups dedicated to the preservation of information about military organizations. Often the persons involved have a familial interest in the organization and are open to sharing stories. At the heart of the Eighth Air Force were its bombardment groups, each equipped with scores of heavily armed, four-engine bombers. These Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and Consolidated B-24 Liberators were soon punching through the enemy's defences to bomb targets vital to its war effort. They were crewed by thousands of young American airmen, most of whom were volunteers. That is why it’s so important that the Ridgewell museum is preserved and continues to be used as a focal point for the families,” Bingley said. “It is an honor to be a part of it.” Probably not advice, more an observation: researching is much easier than writing. Anyone can be a detective, piecing stories together like a jigsaw puzzle, but actually forming it into a coherent narrative is much harder to do. Don’t expect to become rich, either. If I was to calculate my hourly pay for writing my most recent book, there wouldn’t be a calculator capable of recording all the zeros after the first zero and decimal point. Having said that, the reward comes from knowing you’ve told a story that many didn’t know before.

The bodies of the servicemen were painstakingly recovered from the Isle of Man, returned to Ridgewell for identification, then buried at the military cemetery in Cambridge. Because there is very little left of the airfield today—as most of the buildings and infrastructure, including the hangars, control tower, runways, and hardstands, are gone—the former base has been all but forgotten. An intimate history of a B-17 Bomb Group at the heart of the US Eighth Air Force's daylight bombing offensive against Hitler's Germany.

Interviews

Bingley said he first learned about the 381st in 2003 when he read the book Combat Crew by John Comer, who had served as an engineer and top turret gunner with the 381st at Ridgewell. The museum on opening day, June 2022. [Courtesy: Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum] He befriended some of the 381st’s ground crews and built up a collection of wartime memorabilia, which he exhibited around Essex,” Bingley said. “Finally, he got permission to display his collection in a small section of the current museum building. Sadly, he passed away before seeing the fruit of his labors. The museum continued on, thanks to his friends, including Jim and Jenny Tennet, together with Alan and Monica Steel, and several others.” Paul’s first book, US Air Force Bases in the UK, retraced the concrete paths of 50 of the UK’s past and present American air force bases. The book examines how the so-called “special relationship” has helped shape the land we see today. Are there any historians who helped shaped your career? Similarly, can you recommend three history books which budding historians should read? If you could give a piece of advice to your younger self, either as a student or when you first started out as a writer, what would it be?

The Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum was created in 2000 as a means to protect and preserve the legacy of the men who lived, worked, and flew from Ridgewell. 532nd Bomb Squadron crew members. [Courtesy: Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum] While there are other veterans associations and organizations that provide educational support to the children of those who served with the 381st, there aren’t many places to visit where their family members once served.As part of the trip, he walked the parts of the base that had been the athletic fields, the hangars, and looked for the area where his uncle’s billet had been. On April 23, 1945, a B-17G, 43-38856, flown by a two-pilot crew was transporting 29 servicemen. Many of the men had been at Ridgewell since the 381st arrived in June 1943. Keep in mind the usual crew complement of a B-17 was 10 men. Paul has described writing Bomb Group as “penance” for not knowing he lived just nine miles from the former Eighth Air Force base at Ridgewell – the Essex home of the 381st Bomb Group. For a self-confessed aviation geek, it was an awkward discovery.