Lieutenant-Colonel Allan C. House reminded me of my father. His ruddy complexion, his gingery moustache, and his friendly and fatherly attitude quickly endeared him to the Air Ministry staff on the station. He was fond of walking, and if obliged to use transport he preferred either a bicycle or a jeep. He told me that he had frequently walked in the Black Forest and loved the open air. He was a man of simple habits, and we were soon to learn that he had a genuine understanding of our difficulties and our enthusiasm. His only failing, if a failing it was, was that he was most approachable, and very soon this readiness to listen to the pleas of others caused him great inconvenience and not a little worry. Colonel House brought with him a small party of junior officers and men, who had been picked to work as an advance party on the occupation of the new station. They set to work cleaning out the newly completed buildings, re-decorated the old huts and repaired the black-out curtains. They overcame the shortage of coal and coke by sawing up the trunks of the many trees which had been felled for the runway extensions, and soon the fuel stores on every site were bulging with stacks of logs. The work which this small advance party of Americans carried out under Colonel house was unbelievable. They tried no tricks on the A.M.W.D., rifled no stores, nor asked for anything which they knew they should not have. Their numbers included expert painters and sign-writers, carpenters and even electricians. When they wanted a stove, they did not demand it and expect it to be fixed by our already over-worked civilians; the new stove was collected at the store, installed to our satisfaction and the old stove returned for repair or salvage. Neat bins were placed in ablutions and on living sites for salvage purposes and the grounds around the huts began to show the results of their efforts in gardening.

The flying school, however, were just the opposite. Shingler had been moved out of one Nissen hut on the technical site to make way for the flying school and he had been in another building only two days when the officer in charge of the school approached Colonel House and asked for the building which Shingler had taken over as his office. The Colonel, approachable as ever, agreed to ring me up. As he put the proposition to me, I realised that unless I made a stand, the work on the station as a whole would suffer at the hands of the flying school, and I refused to entertain the idea of moving Shingler's office again. Over the telephone I could hear Colonel House inform the officer of my refusal and a somewhat heated conversation appeared to take place; then Colonel House spoke again.

"The Major says that Shingler's building must be handed over before the school can operate."

"I am sorry, Colonel," I replied "but if I agree to move people here and there without consideration for them, we might as well stop the job."

"But, my God, Bailey," the Colonel exploded, "My God, man, this is an operation of war".

I bit back the retort. I should have liked to say that the completion of the perimeter track and standings for the bomb group was also an operation of war, but instead I merely reiterated my refusal and heard the Colonel slam down the receiver. That was the only occasion on which Colonel House and I had had a disagreement and I felt it advisable to call on him and explain my position. Before doing so, however, I went round to the watch office which the flying school had made their headquarters. The officer in charge of the school was talking to his American Flying Control Officer and I bearded the lion in his den. They blustered a good deal, but in the end they were obliged to accept my argument and I left the building with a feeling that I had won the fight. As I was leaving I heard the Flying Control officer tell the Major that it would be best to arrange for the school to transfer to another station, and to my relief this was done a few days later. The Major probably considered me most unco-operative, but my perspective was clearer than his own, as I know that the flying school were only lodgers, and I was aware of the Bombardment Division's impatience at slow progress of our work. The advent of the flying school had set back the completion of Attlebridge at least six weeks, as the contractors were obliged to go into the new buildings once again to repair the damage and complete the work in readiness for the buildings being put to their proper use. When I left the watch office I called round at the temporary office which Colonel House had taken over. It was not clear to me how I should open the conversation, but circumstances were in my favour, for as I entered the office I saw that the Colonel was writing a letter. It was presumably a letter to home, and he hurriedly covered the sheet with a piece of blotting paper. He was very embarrassed, and disguised his confusion by handing me a packet of cigarettes and inviting me to take a seat. I sat down and wondered how to frame my introductory speech. The Colonel must have been doing the same but somehow neither speech was delivered.

"Do you know, Bailey," he said, "I haven't had mail from home for four weeks." I sympathised with him, and the awkward situation passed.

"Let's jump in my jeep and have a look round," he said, and we went out to the waiting vehicle. I took the opportunity of showing him the buildings which the flying school were using, and at the end he took me to his quarters, showed me the photographs of his family, and pressed me to accept a fat cigar. After that day the Colonel always referred to me before taking any action in the occupation of a building, and never queried my decision as to whether or not a building was suitable for use.

Shingler was making steady progress with the aircraft dispersals, but he had a personal worry which he confided to me during an inspection of his work. I had found him quarters on the site but the preparation for occupation by the coming bomb group had made him realise that he might one day be turned out of his temporary home in the same way that he had been required to move his office. He asked me if it was not possible to find lodgings with civilians and I agreed to make enquiries in the district. At length I was informed that an elderly lady was prepared to take a lodger, and I went to see her. Her small, pink cottage was situated in a sandy lane about a mile from the airfield. After a conversation with her, I came to the conclusion that the accommodation she could offer was more suitable for myself than were my present lodgings, as there would be less inconvenience to her than to my landlady when my wife visited me for a few days. Arrangements were made for Shingler, who was a bachelor, to move into the smallholder's cottage and I took up my quarters with the elderly widow. Her cottage comprised two rooms downstairs and two bedrooms and a boxroom above. Lighting was by oil-lamp, and a curious feature of the house was that of the staircase. The steps wound in a spiral into the large bedroom above and it was necessary to cross the corner of the larger room in order to enter the smaller back bedroom. I imagined the inconvenience and embarrassment which would be likely to arise should I ever wish to stay up after my landlady had gone to bed or to get up before she rose in the morning. Strangely enough, this situation never did, in fact, arise, and I settled down in comfort in my new home. Ernie and his wife thought at first that I was dissatisfied with their arrangements for my well-being, but they were soon persuaded that there was no quarrel as far as I was concerned, and Shingler lost no time in making himself popular with the country couple.

The great day came at Attlebridge when a long-awaited item of switchgear arrived for installation in the new electricity sub-station. The late arrival of switchgear had meant that three otherwise completed sites were without electricity, and for forty-eight hours the cable contractors worked almost incessantly to install the gear and complete the circuit. Colonel House was delighted at the thought of having an additional hundred or more huts available for use and he set about organising the supply of beds and bedding in readiness for occupation. One day I was startled when a young Chinese presented himself at my office. He was small and rather squat, faultlessly neat in his officer's uniform, and when he spoke and introduced himself as Lieutenant Eddy Tom, I was struck by his broken Chinese-English. Eddy Tom could not have been more than twenty two years of age, and as I came to know him better, I could not help admiring his boundless enthusiasm and his cheerful disposition. He would crack a joke in broken English, the words sometimes almost unintelligible, and his mouth would open wide in a show of gleaming white teeth, his eyes disappearing into two narrow slits and his whole body shaking with silent mirth. Eddy Tom was infectious, and his likeable disposition fitted him admirably for the job set him by Colonel House. He informed me that he was the Utilities Officer, a term I had not encountered before. In the American Army a Utilities Officer has little more to do than to see that drains and similar domestic necessities are kept clean and efficient, but in England the duties were extended to include a general responsibility for the reporting of minor items of maintenance required to buildings. Eddy Tom's chief duties in the first place were the taking over of keys for new buildings and the allocation of bedding and furniture to the barrack huts. He was, therefore, required to work in close co-operation with the A.M.W.D., and to take over each building as soon as possible after completion. Amongst his fellow officers Tom was a jester and a butt for their joking comments, but he treated them all with good humour and even joined in their mirth when he betrayed his ignorance of the intricacies of the English language. Whenever he came into the A.M.W.D. office, faces lighted up and reflected his smiles and irrepressible good humour.

The Colonel from the Second Bombardment Division headquarters called once more to check on progress. He was pleased with the buildings but not with the accommodation for aircraft on the field and he questioned me closely as to the possibility of increasing progress in this direction. He was satisfied however, that the contractor and the Ministry of War Transport were working at full capacity, and he went home to think again. The result of his findings came to me in an overwhelming way a few days later. I was in the office going over the plans with Brierley when there was a knock at the door and Captain Smith walked in accompanied by Carl Merbitz. Behind them followed three officers whom I had not seen before; one was a Lieutenant-Colonel and the other two were Majors. All wore the Castle insignia denoting that they were commissioned in the American Corps of Engineers. The Colonel was the officer in charge of the 113th Engineer Aviation Battalion, U.S. Army. Captain Smith explained the purpose of their visit very briefly. The battalion was to move in within a week and take over a major portion of the perimeter track construction. They wanted living accommodation for a hundred and fifty men on the site, and I was to indicate where they could start work on the pouring of concrete. From their conversation it became apparent that they intended to lay concrete at an incredible rate with a colossal amount of plant, in order to finish the job in the shortest possible time. They asked me about the water supply. I had to tell them that the small temporary bore-hole could not supply them with the thousand gallons of water they required each hour and at the same time maintain a supply for the works already in progress on the site. They agreed to bring tankers and draw water from the river two miles away. They wanted cement at the rate of 120 tons per day and ballast was to be supplied to them at something like five or six hundred tons per day. I was staggered at the suddenness of their appearance and the magnitude of their demands but I agreed to do whatever I could to co-operate. Captain Smith pointed out that the battalion would work under my instructions, but would set out the work to my plans and supervise their own construction with junior officers. When the Colonel and the two Majors had left, I turned to Captain Smith, and he laughed at the expression on my face.

"Don't take it so hard, Bailey," he exclaimed. "I know this is a bit of a blow but you will make out alright when the battalion gets going."

Carl Merbitz was very helpful to me that day, as he had been posted to Attlebridge from an Aviation Battalion and he was able to tell me something of the plant they would use and the methods they would employ. He had worked on one of the two airfields erected solely by Americans in East Anglia, and he gave me a glowing account of the tremendous speed with which construction was carried out. For the next few days heavy earth-moving equipment was rolling in in preparation for the battalion. D.8 Caterpillar Tractors with 12-cubic-yard scrapers, huge bulldozers, rooters, and sheepsfoot rollers appeared on the site. At length the great mixer was delivered. It was a huge affair with a hopper large enough for a lorry to discharge its whole contents direct by tipping. The drum of the mixer discharged into a large hopper which travelled along a boom and dropped its load of concrete almost anywhere at will. The whole piece of equipment moved on caterpillar tracks and could, therefore, work on soft ground. The Engineer troops moved in to the station and took over one of the newly completed living sites. Their officer in charge presented himself at my office and I learned that his name was Captain Frank Weed. He was a small, dark man with a quiet manner and none of the arrogance of the Colonel and the two Majors who had first floored me with their unexpected visit a few days earlier. He asked me about the supply situation and I was able to assure him that the first deliveries would commence before he wished to start concreting.

The next problem was to find a suitable area for the newcomers to develop without interference with Shingler or the contractor. The only available area was a cornfield owned by a very co-operative farmer named Garrod, and I approached Mr. Garrod to ask him if he would thresh his cornstack, which was still on the field. He agreed to do so immediately, and I gave Captain Weed a plan showing the positions of the new track and aircraft dispersals. Weed brought two N.C.Os with their instruments and setting out was commenced. The work started some fifty yards from my office and on the following morning the roar of diesel engines made work impossible in the small Nissen hut. The engineers had started scraping for the perimeter track extension.

For two days the scraping went on and at last the concrete mixer moved into position and the first steel forms were laid. The speed of laying was very high and the quality of the work was reasonably good, but I noticed that no advance work was commenced on the laying of side drains for the track. I questioned Captain Weed on this matter and he intimated that he had not intended laying drains. I pointed out the run of the drains required and he set a small gang to excavate the trench by hand. Concrete was being poured and scraping was in progress just ahead of the mixer. Fifty yards farther up, two lines of pipe ducts were required to cross the track for telephone and electric cable. The engineers had not reckoned on this and Captain Weed could find no man to excavate the trench. Shingler was fully taken up, as also was the contractor with his work. The American mixer must not stop on any account. The only men who could lay the ducts were a handful of A.M.W.D. groundsmen whose real duty was the maintenance of the grassed areas. It was agreed that these men should excavate the trenches and lay the ducts in position and this was done and completed just a few yards ahead of the mixer. A little farther on, a manhole was required at a point where a tee joint occurred in the airfield lighting cables. The engineers had no bricklayers and the maintenance contractor was brought in to construct a hasty manhole. This again was finished only just ahead of the mixer. I soon came to realise that the Aviation Battalion were in fact, nothing more or less than a mammoth concreting gang and they were not equipped for the everyday contingencies arising during construction.

One day the supply of cement ran out. Captain Deed stormed into my office to find the reason. There was nothing I could do about it, as the manufacturers had simply been unable to supply the cement in railway wagons to the small railway station. I remembered the Ministry of Transport's stock in the big hangar and we went over to meet Shingler in his office. Shingler, who had been pouring concrete at a steady rate and had amassed his stocks in advance of requirements, was rather reluctant to allow the engineer to draw from his supply, but he eventually agreed to do so and the situation became easier once more. The Colonel came in from his battalion headquarters when the work had been in progress about a fortnight, and he informed me that he had been instructed to lay down some of the aircraft dispersal standings which had originally been allocated to Shingler. I could not see that this action made for much greater progress as the standings proposed to be taken over were alongside the work which Shingler was doing at the time and the area would be congested with traffic and men. However, I spoke to Shingler and he agreed to move to another point along the perimeter track. The big mixer and the plant moved over to the new area and in due course the standings were laid down. Before many days had passed the Americans had finished in that area and their only access to a second group of standings was by running along the new perimeter track which had been laid less than a fortnight earlier by Shingler's men. If they commenced work on that section of the site it meant that lorries laden with cement and ballast would be running along concrete which had not matured sufficiently to withstand heavy loads, but the Americans were not to be held back. Captain Weed and I went once more to see Shingler. The Ministry of Transport Engineer refused point blank to permit transport to run along his newly finished concrete. He sat at his deal table blinking stolidly through his spectacles, and Captain Weed stood with his back to Shingler staring through the office window. I looked from one man to the other in the dead silence of their antagonism.

"Look here," I said at last, "you laid one half of the concrete a week before the other. Let's barricade the new half and take a chance on the older concrete standing up to it."

"You can do what you like" said Shingler, "but I will take no responsibility. You know the concrete is not old enough."

"Alright, I will take the responsibility", I replied, "and we'll be as careful as we can." Captain Weed and I left the office, and when we were out of earshot Weed turned to me and said,

"It's always the same, we've had it everywhere we've been - you don't want us here." I saw red at that, for to me, anyone who could increase production on my site was welcome.

"Don't be a fool, man," I said, "you can't blame Shingler for taking a pride in his work, and you can't blame him if he thinks your doing part of his job is a reflection on him. When you've been here a little longer, you'll find that he is a very decent chap."

Shingler was still burning with indignation when I met him later in the day.

"The ill-mannered little squirt," he fumed, "standing there with his back to me."

"Look here, Shingler," I protested, "he doesn't want to work here any more than you do. He thinks you were antagonistic to him today because he's American, and that just won't do. I've agreed to let him run on your concrete, and I take the responsibility. I'll see that you two don't clash with your work. Now for heaven's sake let's try to work together a bit more."

The feeling was still there, however, until an opportunity came to me to produce goodwill between the two men. Shingler called at my office with a problem regarding breaking out the end of a runway to piece up with his new work. About two thousand square yards of concrete some eight or nine inches thick had to be broken up and removed before the new runway extension could proceed. Shingler had one compressor only, and even if he arranged to hire the contractors machine the work would have taken weeks.

"I'll ask Weed to root it out for you," I suggested, and I called on the Captain and put the proposal to him. He agreed readily. The Engineers did not normally work on a Sunday, but he instructed a D.8 bulldozer operator to root up the concrete and push it off the runway edges on that day, so as not to impede progress on his own construction. The Sunday in question was a day off for the civilian employees also, so that progress on the runway end was not seen until Shingler returned to the site on the Monday morning. To his astonishment he found the whole area of almost half an acre cleared, roughly graded for him, and a huge pile of broken concrete on each aide of the runway, ready for breaking down to handy pieces for carting. He was delighted, and made a point of expressing his appreciation to Captain Weed. The Captain merely grinned broadly, and he and Shingler were friends from that day onwards.

The scrapers moved over to the other side of the track and scraping went on for two days. Captain Weed rushed into my office on the third day and said that they had uncovered some cable tiles. I went out to investigate and found that the scrapers had cut out a lane two feet deep and just cleared the tiles protecting the 11,000 volt main feed cable which supplied the station.

"What on earth made you scrape so deep?" I asked him. Weed did not know. He explained to me that levels were taken by Battalion headquarters surveyors and the section plotted in the office. The operators on the site were merely given levels to which they must scrape. I took it up with the Battalion headquarters and found that they had a very simple method of deciding the line to which they must scrape. A G.I. plotted the profile of the ground, laid his ruler at the beginning and end of the strip to be scraped, and drew a line. Hitherto the method had worked very well because the ground had been of an even grade, but at the point where the cable was laid, the ground rose two or three feet. The rule of thumb had still been applied, with the result that a major catastrophe had almost occurred with the uncovering of the cable. Work was held up for a day whilst the Electricity Supply Company inspected the cable to ascertain whether or not damage had been done. Fortunately, nothing serious was amiss, and the protecting tiles were re-laid on top. I instructed Captain Weed to re-cover the tiles with hard subsoil filling and roll the area solid with sheepsfoot rollers. This took another two or three days, and the Captain was glad to accept my guidance and instructions on all future occasions as he had obviously been shaken by the occurrence.

The Superintending Engineer visited the station, and spent a day with me in an attempt to assist me in the difficulties of men and materials. He had known from the first that I was short of staff, but had been unable to help me in that direction. I had been fortunate to obtain the services of a good Foreman of Trades, a well-known Norwich builder named George Dack, but I needed twice my present supervisory staff to cover the greatly increased rate of construction. As a result of the Surerintending Engineer's visit, however, a second Clerk of Works reported for duty in the autumn. He was a bricklayer by trade, an elderly man with acute rheumatism which prevented his moving about very quickly. I was not sure how best to use him on a contract involving long distances between sites, but at last I decided to install him in a small hut on the Mess site, and to make him responsible for that site and two nearby living areas which were nearing completion. A second Foreman of Trades was transferred from a completed station, and he too was sent to the Mess site office. Finally a Civil Engineering Assistant reported for duty. He was some seventeen years my senior, a dour Scot named William Gilfillan, and had been posted to me with the intention of preparing whatever plans I was obliged to make on site; he would have been more welcome had he arrived six months earlier, but I had already prepared all the working drawings required, and he was too late. He took over the surveying work, however, and commenced the preparation of record plans showing construction completed. The rearrangement of duties took the load off Brierley's shoulders as well as my own, and we were able to concentrate more fully on the technical buildings, the water supply and the new sewage disposal works.

An increased labour force became available for the contract as a result of the completion of contracts elsewhere, and here again the extra men would have been most useful if we had had them in the early summer. There was still a great deal to be done, however, and the contractor's progress improved considerably, a matter of relief to me as I knew the Bomb Group were not so far away. In the absence of instructions from Air Ministry I decided to abandon caution and cease wasting labour and time on the concealment of work in progress. I also relaxed control of flying obstructions on the airfield, as there were no longer any aircraft on the station.

The long-awaited aviation petrol storage tanks arrived on site. The work on digging out the huge pit into which they were to be placed had been abandoned temporarily owing to the delay in delivery, but I was able to glean enough advance information to enable the surrounding concrete roads to be completed, the pit excavated, and the reinforced concrete anchor raft to be in position at the bottom of the pit by the time the first two tanks were delivered. One complete installation comprised six tanks, each holding twelve thousand gallons, and the handling of the huge empty cylinders was a problem in itself. Each tank was about thirty feet in length and nine feet in diameter. A specialist firm were responsible for installing the tanks and machinery, and their fitters arrived on site at the same tine as the tanks. Events were shaping smoothly with the petrol installation, and I began to feel that some organisation was at least showing itself in that section of the work.

The first two tanks were in position on the raft when the second pair arrived, and the last two had been delivered before the fitters had finished strapping down the others with thick wire ropes. Eight ropes were strapped round each tank, their ends being made secure to anchor bolts cast in the concrete bed. When in position, the tanks were to be surrounded with puddle clay to ground level, and a layer of soil would eventually cover all but the inspection covers and draw-off pipes. At last all six tanks were in position, and the contractor's men began the sloppy, messy task of placing the wet clay in position. There had been no accidents, everything had worked out smoothly.

About two feet of clay had been paced over the bottom of the pit, and the weather had been fine during the operation. Work was stopped at this stage, however, owing to a day's rain making ground conditions difficult. I was not dismayed at the slight delay, as we were well ahead with the work and the tanks could have been used without their protective clay jackets if needed.

I had no worries on my mind when I went to the office next day. My major troubles were over; I had a larger staff, the contracts were proceeding smoothly, the engineers and Shingler were getting on splendidly. Brierley met me at the office door. His face was very serious as he greeted me.

"Have you been to the petrol installation?" he asked.

"No. Why?" I queried.

"We'd better go over", he replied, and we got into the van. Brierley spoke little as we drove round the track to the far side of the field, and I thought perhaps he had some private worry on his mind. A small crowd of men stood by the pit side as we got out of the vehicle. Then I saw the cause of Brierley's worried look. One of the centre tanks was sticking out of the pit at an angle, some two feet above the position it had occupied on the previous day. It was my turn to worry. The empty tank, surrounded by moist clay and the water resulting from a day's rain, had burst its ropes at one end and was floating.

We returned to the office, and a little later the Agent called on me. He had a brilliantly foolish suggestion to make. If we filled the tank with water it would squeeze itself down into position again, and we could refasten the anchors. This suggestion, made in all seriousness, made me laugh outright, and I pushed him away from me in mock disgust. He realised the humour of the suggestion, which was impracticable and pointless, and we were able to extract a little amusement out of the situation. It was not for long, however. George Dack came in to say that a second tank had bobbed up in the air - where would it stop?

The workmen were put to the task of digging out the wet clay, and the work went on for weeks. Only a few days had elapsed, however, when we discovered the reason for the anchors failing to hold the tanks against the uplift of the clay fill. In rolling the heavy cylinders into position, the fitters had neglected to place railway sleepers on the raft to clear the projecting anchor bolts, with the result that the bolts had been flattened. In every case the bolts had snapped at the point where they had been bent over. A startling discovery was made when one of the anchors was dug out. The tightening of the wire ropes in fixing had been sufficient to snap the bolt, and the fitter had botched up the fixing by passing a bar through the end of the rope and holding it down with bags of hard cement. How the trick escaped the notice of the supervisory staff I cannot tell, and the makeshift had been covered hastily with puddle clay to escape detection.

The knowledge that the responsibility for the occurrence lay with the contractors did not prevent my worrying a good deal over the matter. The fact was that whoever was to blame, delay had been caused, and my pleasure at the smooth running of that section of the work was replaced by a sad reflection that events seemed continually to conspire against our success at Attlebridge.

Carl Merbitz, who was due to leave a few days later, was sympathetic about the mishap but he had no idea as to how to deal with the situation. Neither had Captain Weed, and it was clear to me that he was glad the problem was mine and not his. Their sympathy and shared dismay at the occurrence was very gratifying, as it was evidence of their feeling for the general progress of the work on the station.

The R.A.F. Administrative Officer dashed into my office early one afternoon with a hurried goodbye, and explained that he had been posted to another station. For a few days no replacement appeared but eventually a smart military-looking Squadron Leader arrived and made himself kown to us. His name was Squadron Leader Chesney. He was an ex-Army Officer and his smart appearance and decisive voice stamped him every inch a soldier. A neat black eyeshield covered one eye, a legacy no doubt of an action in the last war.

Squadron Leader Chesney interested himself in our work rather more than previous Administrative Officers, and he soon made it clear that his duty was to prepare the final arrangements for the handing over of the station. The R.A.F. personnel increased slightly in numbers, and the Equipment section headed by a Flight Lieutenant Hughes were busy getting in bedding, linoleum and other barrack equipment to accommodate the incoming American unit.

Colonel House visited the office very frequently, generally to enquire as to the possibility of occupying a certain building but occasionally merely to say good-morning - a friendly gesture which showed that he regarded us as something more than merely a means to an end. On one of his goodwill visits the Colonel casually asked me if Brierley and I would like a P.X. Ration card.

"What is the P.X.?" I asked.

"It's short for Post Exchange" explained the Colonel; "I suppose it's equivalent to your N.A.A.F.I. You can get razor blades and tobacco, and shoe-cleaning materials. "

I was glad of the offer as there had always been great difficulty in obtaining the fundamental requirements for personal comfort from the local village shops, and time was too precious to spend on the long journeys to Norwich. I accepted the offer with thanks, and on the next day two neat little buff cards arrived at the office for Brierley and myself. We found that the P.X. had been installed in a small room in one of the old buildings, and that afternoon Brierley and I went along to the shop to see what was to be had. We gasped as we entered the small room and saw the array of goods on the improvised shelves. American chocolate and candies, cigarettes and tobacco, pipes - an unknown thing in English shops at that time - Khaki towels and bars of soap, shoe creams and cleaning brushes, combs and hair brushes, razors and razor blades. There was scented talcum powder, shaving soap, hair cream and face lotion. We could buy little packets of biscuits of British manufacture. As Brierley and I stood in wonderment at the counters a G.I. shop assistant took our cards one by one and asked,

"Cigarettes, cigars or tobacco, sir?'

We chose cigarettes and seven twenty-packets were placed before us.

"Gum or candy, sir?" enquired the assistant.

I tried gum for the novelty of it. Two packets of spearmint and a handful of bar chocolate were added to the cigarettes.

"Double or single-edge blades?" querired the G.I.

"Er - double-edged please." I replied breathlessly. It appeared that my struggle to obtain razor blades was over.

"Soap and towel, sir?" asked the assistant, and I nodded without being able to say a word. The bill was added up, and I imagined having to pay a pound or more for the articles I had bought. To my astonishment the bill was eight and elevenpence, and Brierley and I exchanged astonished glances as we paid the account. On our way back from the shop we recovered our composure and almost gloated over the wonderful luck we had had in being offered the facility by Colonel House.

Each week Brierley and I went along to the P.X. and having found our feet after the rather overwhelming experience of the first visit, we began to pick and choose. I have always been fond of a cigar and I frequently took a week's ration of twenty-one cigars instead of cigarettes. The towels were issued once monthly if required, but I bought only two to help out my landlady, who had not bean able to replace her stocks since rationing was introduced. Brierley and I kept this privelege secret as long as we could because it was obvious that there would be serious objections to the facility being introduced on a large scale amongst civilians. We were surprised, therefore, when the Clerk of Works and Foreman of Trades from the Mess site applied for ration cards. I took up the matter with Colonel House, however, and he issued cards for the two men. Then the groundsman applied for a card and Colonel House issued one to him. Within a few weeks twelve A.M.W.D. staff possessed P.X. ration cards, and I began to feel that the system was becoming a matter of abuse. I began to notice the large parcels of goods being brought out of the Post Exchange shop by members of the staff, and I realised that the A.M.W.D. were soon going to get a bad name for scrounging if someone did not apply the brake. The last straw came when the storeman walked into my office and demanded a ration card. I told him that I could not support his request for a card, as if one were issued to him, all the assistant groundsmen would have to be supplied well. He became abusive and threatened to report the matter to Area Headquarters if he was not issued with a ration card. I lost my temper at that, took my own card out of my pocket and handed it to the man with an order to get out. He stuttered and pretended to stand on his dignity, but I pushed him out of the office and told him never to mention the matter again. I did not use the P.X. at Attlebridge after that day, and it was a matter of some relief when official action was taken to withdraw all ration cards. The Commanding Officer who succeeded Colonel House was given the painful duty of carrying out the instructions and he was naturally most unpopular after he had done so, but I had no sympathy with the grabbing methods which had caused the privilege to be withdrawn, and I was sorry that I had ever been associated with the scheme.

Colonel House left the station to take over the sub-depot at Horsham-St.-Faith, which was to be the parent station of the Combat Wing controlling Attlebridge. In his place there arrived a very different man named Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm D. Seashore; Colonel Seashore was tall and thin with a long loping stride and a stiff back. His wiry hair was cropped short and his face was hard and stern. He had a low, iron voice and he used few words to express his wishes or his disapproval. The unfortunate first task of cancelling all P.X.ration facilities made him most unpopular with the A.M.W.D. but I saw that he was not. of course, taking the action on personal whim, but as a result of an instruction from higher levels.

Colonel Seashore was not a good man to deal with, however. When he had an idea he issued an instruction, and that instruction had to be carried out. Unfortunately he attempted to bring the A.M.W.D. under his control and very shortly I found myself up against him on questions of policy. The Colonel had an idea for reorganising the Messing accommodation, and he wanted to move cooking equipment out of some buildings and put them in others. I could not allow this, of course, as the equipment was designed for special purposes and had been placed in buildings in accordance with a programme and policy agreed between Air Ministry and the U.S.Army. Colonel Seashore placed a Captain Jones in a position of authority over young Eddy Tom and it soon became clear that Jones was assigned the duty of enforcing the Colonel's wishes and instructions on the A.M.W.D. The Captain used to come into my office chewing a cud of tobacco, and without apology for the intrusion he would launch his latest idea. Light points were wanted in different positions, power plugs were to be fixed here and there without any consideration for the capacity of the supply to the buildings. Precious and unobtainable materials such as timber and plywood were demanded for the unit to construct their own partitions and counters in the new building. The Captain even had his eye on the farmhouse and barns which we were using as offices and stores. He tried to project me out of my headquarters in order to establish himself in the building, and he planned to develop a major maintenance organisation of his own. Matters came to a head at last, and a heated discussion took place in Colonel Seashore's office. It was clear that an attempt was being made to get hold of as much material as possible so that Captain Jones could by-pass the usual channels for the adaptation of buildings to suit the whim of Colonel Seashore by carrying out the work himself. It was necessary for me to hold out in my refusal to allow the indiscriminate waste of material and the damage of buildings. Captain Jones brought the argument to an end by drawling -

"We want to win this War, don't we?" and in exasperation I retorted that his version of winning the War was fortunately not that of the majority. I left the office with a fervent prayer that Colonel Seashore would soon be posted and that another man of the calibre at Colonel House would take his place. To my great joy this very soon happened, and the next Commanding Officer to arrive on the station was the man who really mattered - Colonel Pearce, the Commanding officer of the Bomb Group proper. He arrived with his Ground Executive Officer and Air Executive Officer to make the absolutely final arrangements for the reception of the Bombers.

With Colonel Pearce arrived a Major on special temporary duty. He was Major Scott, a Scotsman who had not lost his Scottish accent in spite of his many years spent in America. Major Scott was assigned the duty of liaison between the Bomb Group and the Air Ministry to secure the preparation and modification of technical and operational buildings in readiness for active operations. The Major was pushful, and his favourite words were,

"Let's not bother about red tape. Lot get this War won between ourselves."

His saving grace was that he had fulfilled the duty of liaison at a number of stations similar to Attlebridge and therefore knew what was required and how to get it. He very certainly increased the tempo of the final finishing of the buildings and did not waste any time in putting his schemes into practical effect. I saw that here at last was a man who knew what was wanted and whose guidance could be taken as of really practical value. I therefore took certain risks in installing additional benches and lighting fixtures into certain buildings and Major Scott never failed to explain why each minor modification was necessary. As soon as a building was finished he obtained a gang of G.I.s to sweep out, to light the stoves and to air the huts by means of hot air injectors which pumped a warm draught through six inch diameter hoses pushed through the windows.

Colonel Pearce was a charming man. When I left my temporary office to allow the buildings to be demolished, I moved into a Nissan hut which had been erected for A.M.W.D. stores. For several days I tried to manage without a telephone and when Colonel Pearce called on me one day and discovered that I was without the instrument, he summoned his Signals Officer and instructed him to supply a telephone immediately. He invited me to lunch with the officers and this I did one Sunday. I met the officers in charge of the various sections at lunch and we soon made friends. One of the most pleasant of the officers was a Captain Rose Hager, who was in charge of the sub-depot. Rose Hager was a young man from the south, soft spoken, very gentlemanly, and disarmingly genuine in his approach. A few days after the lunch he came to me with a solicitous enquiry after my health. A few pleasantries were exchanged and then Captain Hager fell quiet. I cocked an eye at him and suggested that if he was out to wangle something perhaps he had better get it out of his system and we'd see what could be done. He laughed good-naturedly and then explained a most preposterous idea which had occurred to him. The sub-depot, which is the major aircraft maintenance section of an American Air Force unit, demanded a considerably greater electricity supply than had been designed by the R.A.F. In order to carry the much heavier load caused by the lathes and other machine tools imported by the Americans, a new power cable would have to be run to the workshops from the ring main. Captain Hager hoped that would be able to steal the keys of the switch plinth so that he could enter one night and connect up a cable of his own. I laughed outright at his suggestion and he was easily persuaded that the regulation way of obtaining his requirements was by far the safer and more efficient method, though it would probably take a little longer.

On another occasion, Rose Hager using precisely the same approach of solicitous enquiry after my wellbeing, revealed when pressed at length that he had installed some of his sub-depot personnel in a group of old defence huts on the Technical site. Those huts, which had originally housed Army defence personnel, had no water supply and no drainage. Rose Hager wanted me to put a water supply into one hut, and he proposed to manufacture a battery of showers and his own heating element and to construct a drain which would run into a small piped ditch nearby. Here again the idea was rather fantastic, but in this case I was able to compromise by agreeing to lay water on to the buildings. I soon found that although the Americans had little practical idea as to the theory of drainage and water supply they were quick to learn and to agree when the technical difficulty was explained to them. Their masterly instinct for improvisation may have proved invaluable in the field, but on an inhabited airfield where the interests of sanitation needed careful watching their improvisation would surely have caused immense trouble if there had not been someone there to say them nay. Happy relations with the Unit at Attlebridge enabled me to say nay on rather more occasions than I said yes, but in many cases a happy compromise solution was possible and this was applied in the shortest possible time without too much attention to red tape and formality.

Captain Weed came to me as his concreting programme was nearing completion and he had a very worried look. He had been instructed to receive a Barber-Greene Asphalt spreading machine and to spread and roll a carpet of asphalt over the old concrete perimeter track. This practice was being applied to most of the old stations in an attempt to prevent deterioration of the concrete which had been laid for lighter aircraft. Weed confessed to me that his men had never used a Barber-Greene, and in fact, had never spread asphalt before. He asked me for advice as to the method and I gave him a brief explanation of the operation as I thought it should be carried out. American type spray tanks arrived and the tack coat of bitumen was sprayed on the concrete in advance of the asphalt. The first day's work was a pitiful sight. No attempt had been made to sweep the mud off the concrete any the bitumen stood in sticky globules over the area. However, the mud was cleared off and a new coat was applied. The first strip of asphalt to be laid took so long that it had hardened off before the rollers were able to consolidate the carpet. The G.I. who operated the spreader could not regulate the thickness of the coat nor the direction in which the machine moved, and the result was a wavy, undulating layer of black material, very rough and stoney, with cracks here and there and the edges meandering about off and on the edge of the concrete in an erratic fashion. Captain Weed asked me to examine the first day's work, and when I saw it I could not help laughing at the sorry mess. If Weed required any situation to humiliate him and assure him of his inexperience, that situation had at last arrived. He promised me that the work would improve as time went on, and it did in fact improve considerably within a few days. Captain Weed made no further attempts to advertise the slickness and efficiency of U.S. Army construction methods, and he even went so far as to pass very complimentary remarks regarding the progress which Shingler was making with his concreting. He had, in fact, learned what we had all been required to learn in those hectic days - that schemes laid down on paper did not work out according to plan in wartime, and that plant in large quantities was not in itself a solution to a construction problem.

The 113th Engineer Aviation Battalion drew near to the end of their work. They collected their plant together and piece by piece the equipment was drawn off the station. There was one stormy day when I was passing the second hangar, now completed and newly painted inside with a light cream paint, all ready for the first damaged aircraft to move in. The doors at one end of the hangar were closed but I noticed clouds of black smoke issuing from between the huge sliding panels. I rushed round to the other end of the hangar to find it completely filled with a dense black fog. I ran into the building and saw the red glow of a fire in the middle of the floor. I rushed out again and asked two Engineer Battalion personnel standing nearby, what was the cause of the fire and who had started it. They informed me that they were burning old tyres and inner tubes on Captain Weed's instructions. I hurried back to my office and rang up for the Captain who came hurrying down to see what was wrong. After a stormy few minutes he begged me to 'keep my hair on' and explained that he had merely instructed the G.I.s to dispose of the scrap rubber, and they had chosen the hangar as a cosy sheltered place in which to burn it. A hectic hour was spent in extinguishing the flames and the doors were thrown open to allow the smoke to leave the building. Captain Wood was most apologetic when he saw the newly painted walls blackened with soot, and he offered to wash down the sheeting. The prospect of the Battalion doing further damage was too much for me, however, and I agreed to let the matter drop. The Captain left me, and the Battalion moved out. In leaving, however, Frank Wood was careful to leave behind a few cartons of cigarettes, presumably as a token of apology for the latest outrage he had committed and as a friendly gesture of the goodwill which had grown up between us. Shingler was obliged to stay on a little longer to complete the drains which the Battalion never finished off, but soon he too took his leave and the airfield was ready.

The transport for the Unit began to arrive in large quantities, and shortly afterwards an instruction was issued by Air Ministry that the units on American stations were to be allowed to place more concrete on certain sites to allow for parking space for the vehicles. The parking spaces originally laid down to R.A.F. standards had been found to be completely inadequate for the much greater quantity of wheeled vehicles used by the U.S.A.A.F. Some of the site roads also were found to be too narrow by American standards, and it was agreed that a number of roads should be widened to twenty feet where necessary. Colonel Pearce discussed a programme of work with me and a plan of operations was prepared. I was required to supply a concrete mixer, and wheelbarrows and concreting materials, and Colonel Pearce was to find a concreting gang from his station personnel. The ganger selected by the Colonel reported to my office and I found that he was a Greek named Tom Pappas. Pappas had been engaged in concreting work in civilian life and had been chosen to head a gang consisting of sergeants and corporals, although he was only a Private First-class. We made our arrangements and Pappas set to work. He was still working on the laying of concrete when I left Attlebridge and the sterling work he did led to his promotion to Technical Sergeant before he left the station. Later I found that he had been transferred to the U.S. Corps of Engineers with a commission, and the last that I heard of him was from Germany. He had served with the Engineers in the invasion of Europe and was a full Lieutenant in charge of a Company before he was eventually demobilised.

There was no doubt about the inadequacy of the road widths and parking areas and it was a source of surprise to me that the point had been overlooked by both the U.S. Army and Air Ministry. My experience of American drivers during the War is that they are wild and reckless, relying on the efficiency of their vehicles to got them out of trouble. It is my guess that the majority of U.S. Army drivers in England in 1943 and later had had little or no experience of driving before being drafted into the service. When a lorry met another vehicle on a 12-foot wide road, therefore, there was little evidence of slowing down, and the American vehicle plunged off the concrete on to the grass verge. Here I must point out the peculiar properties of the soil at Attlebridge. During the summer, after a day or two of sunshine and drying wind, the soil became almost rock-hard on the surface - so hard, in fact, that at one time we had been unable to scrape the turf from aircraft dispersal sites with a 6-cubic-yard scraper pulled by a 60-h.p. tractor. We had been obliged to call in a local farmer to break the crust with a cultivator whose sharp tines broke through the baked earth and tore up the top inch or two as if they were lifting tiles from a scullery floor. In this condition the ground had been seen to take the weight of a fully-loaded heavy bomber. Yet the same patch of soil would let you down over the tops of your shoes after a day's rain, and I saw unwary fighter pilots on many occasions with their light craft bogged to the hubs in the treacherous ground.

The new arrivals were constantly in distress therefore, when they allowed their vehicles to leave the roads. I was looking out of my half-Nissen office window one morning and witnessed a typical performance. Two trucks laden with stores came up the country lane which ended near my headquarters; they should have turned left a little farther down the road but it was clear that they had missed the junction. Seeing a gap in the hedge the leading driver decided to plunge over the soft ground and enter the field by way of a nearby aircraft standing, one of those recently completed by the Engineers. He took a run at the ground, and stopped within a yard or so of the concrete, his rear wheels half buried in the bog. The second lorry had followed closely behind, and was obliged to stop also. That was his undoing, for he sank to the axles on all four wheels. The drivers dismounted and discussed their dilemma. The first decided to try with all four wheels in gear and with a roar the truck lurched forward and gained the concrete with the front wheels. The driver changed to front wheel drive, and the truck hauled itself out of the mess, bringing a few hundredweights of soil on to the concrete in the process. The second truck was hauled out by means of the winch fitted on the leading truck, and I was bound to admire the equipment of the vehicles which made them so useful. The amount of mud which the two trucks brought on to the perimeter track, however, made me doubt whether or not it would not have been better had the vehicles been minus four-wheel-drives and winches. In the following months the manoeuverability of American Army trucks did, in fact, become a serious source of regret, as almost every American field I visited was a veritable sea of mud. So serious did the situation become that directives were issued to Commanding officers from high levels on the subject. Drains were choked, barrack hut floors were constantly muddy and wet, and roads became impassable for pedestrians during the winter. The narrow country lanes of East Anglia were gradually widened by the abrasive effect of American truck wheels, and in Autumn 1943 the Norfolk County Council were obliged to undertake road widenings to the main approaches of all airfields. Carriage-ways which had been ten or twelve feet wide were widened to twenty feet and new tarmacadam laid. The farms and hamlets were receiving at least one benefit from the War - they were getting good roads, which they could not get in peacetime.

The new high-level water storage tank on the Mess site was completed, and the last length of connecting pipe was fitted. I chlorinated the new tank and the borehole myself to be sure that it had been done to my satisfaction, and the old borehole on the airfield was cut off. A smaller storage tank, originally fed by the old borehole, stood near the edge of the new perimeter track, its 40-feet high tower forming a serious flying and taxying hazard. Our next task was to dismantle the tank and to erect it over a secondary borehole on a new living site. The borehole was ready, the pumphouse almost completed, and the engineers were installing the pumping equipment. We sent for the specialist firm who were to dismantle the tank and tower, and they set to work on the rather ticklish job, scorning the use of scaffolding, and using nothing but ropes and a plank to swing down the sides of the tank when they were unbolting the plates.

I was on the new site of the tank when the first batch of flying crew took up their quarters. Pasty-faced youths with lambswool caps, jackets and boots appeared on the site, dragging huge kitbags and parachute harness from the six-wheeler truck which had brought them to their new quarters.

"So this is England," I heard one of them any. "Say, these concrete huts look okay," observed another. On that site we had built precast concrete huts - fore-runners of the much maligned prefabricated house - in place of the Nissens, and they certainly did look very neat and trim with their newly washed windows and blue blackout curtains contrasting with the clean, new concrete.

The steelwork erectors, who were sorting out the dismantled tank tower steelwork, stared at the young fliers as they trooped to their barracks. They were a motley crowd, tall and short, thin and angular bodies contrasting with the thick-set swarthy appearances of youths from the south. There were fair complexions and sallow, ginger heads and oily raven black. The only common feature was the uniform, covered for the most part by flying kit.

On returning to the airfield I saw the Liberators which had brought the crews. They stood, very new and as yet unmarked save by the white star, on the group of recently finished dispersals near my office. It was good to see the bombers standing there, on what had been Garrod's field but a few months before.

For several days the Liberators flew in, their bomb racks converted to carry baggage, their air crews and ground crews flying together to the temporary English home we had prepared for them. I saw little of the officers during this period, with the exception of Eddy Tom, who was in my office almost daily, grinning and telling us how he was rushed off his feet with pressure of demands for accommodation. Then at last Colonel Pearce told me that be wanted to take over the Station Headquarters and Operations Block. The   latter building had been late in completion because of shortage of good electricians and the slow progress in the installation of equipment. There were no windows, and all lighting was by means of fluorescent lamps. The telephone exchange, signals teleprinters and radio controls were housed in the Operations Block; it was the nerve centre of the station. We completed our work hastily, and the Unit moved in.

Major Scott told me that the first flight would be a "dry run". No bombs would be carried, and no enemy target attacked; it would be a rehearsal with all the urgency and precision of an operation, but without crossing enemy territory and without opposition.

With the preparations for active missions came a sudden tightening of security measures. Sentries had been posted for some time at all roads leading to the site, and we had been issued with station passes, though we had never used them. With the arrival of the Liberators, however, the sentries stopped every vehicle and checked passes as we entered and left. I was required to enter and leave the airfield several tines each day to reach the living sites outside, and the first few days were somewhat tedious. The sentries, however, gradually relaxed their vigilance over the A.M.W.D. officials as they came to recognise them, and we were free to go where we pleased without checking. I was very surprised, however, on one morning to find my way obstructed in a road outside the station by a group of G.I.s, who were erecting a barbed wire barricade across the road. An armed sergeant was in charge of the man and I got out of the car and asked him what he was doing. He replied that he was barricading the road from the public on Colonel Pearce's instructions.

"But this is a public highway" I objected. "You can't close a public highway in England without getting legal powers."

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders.

"The Colonel has issued the instruction and I carry out his orders," he explained.

"Well, you can take it from me that the barricade will have to come down," I replied "and I suggest that you stop work whilst I speak to the Colonel."

The sergeant said that he could not do this, and the work proceeded. I rushed into the sick quarters situated a few yards away and rang up Colonel Pearce. He admitted that he had issued instructions for all roads leading to the site to be barricaded and he explained that he had received his instructions from the Bombardment Division to the effect that strict security must be imposed immediately.

"That is all right, Colonel," I replied, "but you can't close a public highway on your own authority."

A short argument followed, but when I had pointed out the chaos that would result from such arbitrary action, the Colonel agreed that the barriers would be removed.

"Thank you, Colonel," I said at last, "I will wait here until you send someone out to stop the work."

"Oh, it' s that bad is it?" laughed Colonel Pearce, "I will send somebody straight away, take it from me."

I was allowed through the barrier and want to my office to find that a mobile civil policeman had been on the station only a few minutes earlier objecting to the erection of a barricade across another road leading to the airfield. Brierley had sent the policeman to see Colonel Pearce, and I was glad to know that the civil police had been quick on the mark and that their objection had followed closely enough on my own to show Colonel Pearce that my intervention was in his own interest as much as in the interest of the public. In place of the barricades sentries were posted by the roadside, and security at Attlebridge became a very closely guarded affair. It was obvious that operations were imminent.

The steelwork erectors had almost completed the assembly of the second water tank on its high tower when the foreman came along with the news that two of the top cover plates had disappeared overnight. The plates were about four feet square and a quarter of an inch thick, and I could not imagine anyone stealing such bulky and heavy articles. The matter was reported to the Ground Executive officer and the Military Police made a search of the station. After a few days, however, I received a short report stating that the missing plates had not been recovered. The tank was completed by that time save for its cover, and I supplied the steelwork man with three sheets of thin steel which would at least make a temporary patch and enable the tank to be put into use. The whereabouts of the two plates remained a mystery, and it was months afterwards when I learned the story behind their disappearance. The crew of one of the Liberators, living on the site where the tank was erected, had decided to strengthen the armouring round the rear gunner in their aircraft. The plates had been taken by night, cut to shape by means of an arc welding outfit, and fitted in the rear gun turret. The crew had been afraid to let out their secret when the military police commenced investigations, and the full story was told by the ground crew only after the Liberator failed to return from a mission over Germany. Part of the Attlebridge water tank is lying rusting somewhere near Berlin.

On a foggy damp day in March 1944, the Attlebridge air base sprang to life. All through the night the engines had been roaring and as I went to the office I noticed that the airfield was a scene of bustling activity. It was the day - the day we had worked for - the first operation. Little work was done that morning by anyone of the A.M.W.D. We watched the Liberators, with their tail fins painted bright red and white, taxying round in turn to the end of the main runway. One by one the bombers stirred to life and roared down the concrete strip, just clearing the hedges as they took the air. The wide circle of four-engined bombers wound round the field until the last aircraft had taken off, and coloured signal flares were spurting in the sky as the Liberators moved into formation. I made no enquiries that day as to the target, and avoided ringing up any of the Unit as I know that the first operation was fraught with anxiety and suspense. As I drove round the perimeter track to the petrol installation, now safely covered in and in use at last, I saw the small parties of the ground crews on the dispersals, standing by for news, a few of them knocking together homemade shacks from the first bomb boxes, the whole atmosphere quiet and tense.

The group returned in the late afternoon as the sun was setting. I wondered where they had been and how they had fared as I watched the Liberators land and taxi round to their parking areas. To my surprise I found that their first operation had been Berlin, the most heavily defended and dangerous target in Europe. The Bombardment Wing had not been spared that hard experience for its first operation, and I wondered how the young fliers had come through their grim initiation. It was with some relief and exultation that we heard that no aircraft had been lost and there had been no casualties.

Construction at Attlebridge was virtually completed, but there was still a great deal to do to enable the unit to settle down and to convert buildings to suit the American methods of operations. There was also the unknown quantity of emergency runway repairs, for the Attlebridge runways had never taken loads such as would be imposed daily by four-engined bombers. A young Assistant Engineer came from Headquarters one Sunday and informed me that Air Ministry were working out a reorganisation to cover the period of intensive operations and I was soon to know where my next duties would lie. At the end of March a meeting was called at Newmarket, and the new organisation was explained. The whole area had been split up into groups of three or four stations and a Civil Engineer was to be posted to each group to work in close liaison with the occupying Unit. He was to make his office out of whatever accommodation could be found on site, and was to act directly and with as little reference as possible to Headquarters. The Superintending Engineer summed up the situation in a few words.

"We want to hear as little from you as possible at Headquarters," he explained, "you have to organise the work of repair in your own way, and the only thing that matters is the airfield. You must keep them flying even if the buildings drop to pieces."

I had been posted to Rackheath, one of the three stations under Horsham-St.-Faith, but I was to remain at Attlebridge for the time being to see the contractors off the site. Attlebridge, Horsham-St.-Faith and Rackheath were to be supervised by a Civil Engineer posted at Horsham-St.-Faith, and I was to act as his deputy over the same stations, but this would not happen for two or three weeks,

I returned to Attlebridge from Newmarket and told Colonel Pearce of my impending departure. We all worked very hard in the next few weeks forming the new organisations and Squadron Leader Chesney added to my burden by asking for a complete list of all the buildings and equipment on the station. This list was to form the schedule of a receipt, and I smiled as I read the draft of the receipt which was to be prepared... - "Received from the Commanding Officer R.A.F. Station, Attlebridge, one airfield comprising the following:-" - then would follow the list which I was to prepare. It all seemed very businesslike and it did not reveal the facts as to how the runways and buildings listed on the receipt had been constructed in the face of two bad winters with appalling shortages of material and transport, using American and British personnel and southern Irishmen. There was really nothing very much to show which would appear spectacular or dramatic, and yet 1943 at Attlebridge had been a most dramatic year for the handful of Air Ministry staff who had watched the station grow amongst the cornfields and cottages, at first a cluster of huts, now a busy, thronging, self-contained town occupied by three thousand Americans.

As Easter drew near the Adjutant rang me up and invited me to lunch at the Officers' Mess. All my old friends were there and I noticed that only one man in American uniform ate with his knife in his right hand and fork in his left. The officer who had not adopted the American way of eating was Major Scott, Scotsman by birth and American by adoption or choice, but still a Scot in his speech and method of eating. The Officers were sorry to hear that I was leaving them and I realised that I should be sorry to go. I asked Rose Hager how his boys were getting on in their defence huts with their improvised showers and he laughed good-naturedly and asked me when he could get the power supply to his sub-depot. Eddy Tom stood by, a very junior officer amongst such rank, and grinned happily as his seniors jibed him for refusing a drink at the bar. I wished Colonel House could have been here, but he was busy at Horsham-St.-Faith, and I resolved to call an him before I left the district.

Instructions came for me to leave Attlebridge. I was to report at Snetterton Heath on Easter Tuesday to take up my new appointment. As I was making final preparations for departure, the Adjutant rang up and invited me to the handing over ceremony which was to take place on Easter Monday. He asked if I would like to attend the party in the Officers' Mess on the night of Easter Monday, and I realised that the party would be my last chance to say goodbye to the Colonel and the other friends who were taking the station off my hands.

Over the weekend I inspected all the work on the station; the new buildings, some standing prim and neat in olive green camouflage, others grotesque in shades of pink and red and black, the work of camouflage artists, and some an yet unpainted, looking new and unfinished. The two huge hangars, now occupied by aircraft and vehicles,. the concrete standings filled with Liberators a hundred strong, the smooth concrete perimeter track circling the field, and the watch office, standing sentinel over the runway. I wondered if I had left anything undone and I hoped that work I had done would stand up to the hard wear it would receive. There was regret at leaving Attlebridge, but there was also a feeling of pride that we had achieved what we had set out to do. The job was done, the bombers were there, and Ernie and his wife would know at last the reason for all the bustle and fuss which had been going on behind their farm.