Veteran family visit - we opened up the museum on Sunday 8th December 2024, so that Scott and Adriana O’Brien could visit and walk in the footsteps of Scott’s Grandfather, Sgt James O’Brien, 350th Bomb Squadron Communications. Sgt. James O'Brien James O’Brien was part of the detachment which came to the airfield in advance of the Group to prepare for their arrival. A touching moment was when Scott identified his Grandfather in a photo in the Sad Sack Shack at the museum (phot

Don Miller, pictured with museum volunteers during his visit to Thorpe Abbotts over the weekend of 1st and 2nd June. He was one of the historians touring with a group from the World War 2 museum in New Orleans. This was the latest of many visits to the museum by Don over the years before and since the production of Masters of the Air.

The Museum is delighted with the new Apple TV production of 'Masters of the Air'. We look forward to welcoming fans of the series and those wanting to know more about the 100th. The Museum is open on Saturdays and Sundays from the first weekend in March .Visitors are asked to note that the museum site is accessible at these times, but the rest of the airfield and its sites are on private land and access is not permitted without the express permission of the landowner. We hop

The 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum were honoured to be awarded the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in September 2022. This is the highest award a local voluntary group can receive in the UK and is equivalent to an MBE. Thank you to all our volunteers past and present. Trustees and volunteers at the Norfolk museum, based just outside Diss, were surprised and delighted to have discovered that they had been nominated and won the highest award for voluntary services in the

100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum reveals photographs that haven’t been seen in public for 75 years. As part of our routine museum cataloguing and digitisation we have been able to digitise a selection of unusually sized negatives originally created during WW2. We have the capability to digitise 35mm negatives onsite but we needed support from Each Moment, a company who convert any types of media to digital files so they can be future-proofed. Our trustee Richard Gibson contac

Volunteers Linda and Brian Barden have been looking through some of the photographs in our archives. The photograph below was taken by the pilot of an unknown B-17 which had just taken off from the south east to north west short runway. In this photograph, we can see the course of Hang the Expense during its attempted take off across the airfield and it’s subsequent crash in Lodge farm yard on 26 November 1943. The pilot, Lieutenant Frank Valesh, probably didn’t endear himse

We were pleased to have Colonel Troy Pananon, Commander of the 100th Air Refueling Wing from RAF Mildenhall, and CMSGT Kathi Glascock 100th ARW Command Chief visit us and introduce our virtual tour of the museum. Watch as museum Curator Ronald Batley and trustee Richard Tallent talk about some of the stories behind the displays.

The official declaration of peace in Europe came as no surprise to the men of the 100th Bomb Group. They had flown their last combat mission on 20th April and had spent the week from 1st May dropping food parcels to civilians in Holland. After their final “Chowhound” mission on 7th May, air crews returned to a base on lockdown as rumours swirled that peace would be declared the following day. The Quartermaster’s diary recorded the following: “Peace rumor all day. The Base Hq

By Linda and Brian Barden - 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum Volunteers When we started this project, we never thought it would generate so much interest and enthusiasm. From standing on a cold, wet and very windy Ludham airfield in the middle of winter, to the beautiful sunny day when Jim & Mary Blakely visited on 14 May 2019. Before the visit to Ludham, they were given a tour of Thorpe Abbotts airfield by Ron Batley together with Bill Buck, and volunteers. Jim gave his

By Linda and Brian Barden - 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum Volunteers As mentioned in Part One – we took up Ron Batley's suggestion about finding someone with local knowledge of the airfield. Linda searched the internet and found the Ludham Community Archive Group site. We sent an email and in return, we were provided with the names of local residents – Mike Fuller and William (Bill) Buck an expert on the airfield at Ludham. We arranged a meeting with Mike and Bill and we