With both Metfield and Halesworth temporarily vacant I was able to turn my attention to Beccles and the coastal stations. The two Radar stations were never a great deal of trouble, as the R.A.F. units at each had developed a degree of self-reliance, their usual requirements being small quantities of paint or distemper for "self-help" items of redecoration. The steel and timber radio towers, standing two hundred feet high on top of the cliffs, required routine inspection and minor repairs, but that work was contracted out to specialists and I was required only to place orders for the repairs they recommended in their regular reports. The camps were small temporary affairs, chiefly Nissen and wooden Army huts, and their upkeep was an easy matter. One of the stations ran into trouble at one time when a routine analysis of the water supply showed slight traces of faecal contamination, and I rushed over one evening to investigate. The water was obtained from a shallow well by means of a small pump run by petrol engine; it was raised to twin tanks which stood on a timber tower, and from there a distribution pipe fed a few taps in the cookhouse and ablution buildings. I made a rough estimation of the quantity of water in the well, and dropped the appropriate dose of chlorine down the shaft. The storage tanks were likewise measured and dosed, and all taps were run to allow the chlorine-treated water to fill the pipes. On the next day I repeated the dosing, and told the unit they were safe in using the water. I called on the third day for a check-up, and was cursed roundly in joking fashion by the corporal in the guardroom when I went in to sign the register of visitors. The tea tasted awful, he said; like senna, not like tea at all. I laughed and assured him it would not be for long. Minor repairs were carried out to the well pumphouse and the lid over the tanks, and we heard no more complaints from that station. At the second and larger site we were occasionally asked to rush along a few men to put down brickwork or concrete bases for new experimental and highly secret equipment, but apart from that we had little to do for the Unit.

Squadron-Leader Howard asked me to call at Beccles one day, and on my arrival he showed me a pamphlet relating to the housing and feeding of prisoners of war. He said that fifty Italian "co-operatives" were coming to the station, and would require separate messing facilities, preferably on the site where they were to be housed. That was a poser, as there were no dining on living, sites and the drains were not designed to take kitchen wastes. However, an arrangement was made for a sink and farm boiler and large range to be fixed in one of the nissen living huts, and it was agreed that the Italians could eat in one end of the same hut. Water was laid on to the sink, and we thought that a bucket or tub beneath the waste would suffice for the small kitchen.

The Italians arrived and settled in their quarters. An R.A.F. airman acted as interpreter, and one day two of the Italians came with the interpreter to Blaza's office. They wanted a drain putting in, because of the difficulty of keeping the kitchen clean. I inspected the site with Blaza, and we tried to think of a way of draining the sink without the expense of excavating trenches. An ablution building stood within twenty feet of the nissen we had converted, and we decided to try running a two-inch iron pipe overground across to the ablution, knocking a hole in the bottom of the nissen wall, and turning the pipe into a gulley which drained the ablution floor. The next problem was the provision of a trap to catch grease and vegetable washings. We agreed to use the footpath as a base and build up a tank in brickwork, with partitions inside to arrest the scum. The Italians said they would build the tank themselves, and we supplied them with the materials to do the job, The result was not by any means a highclass affair, and I was concerned at the possibility of insanitary conditions developing on the site. The Italians soon proved to me that my fears were groundless, and on every routine inspection I found the kitchen spotless, the sink clean, and the grease trap and ablution gulley in faultless condition.

On the station the Italians were used as kitchen hands and general labourers. Group Captain Dawkins made them collect old bricks and broken pipes, old boxes and other scrap material left behind by the contractors, and they re-used the materials on the site to make footpaths and edging, railings and even flower pots. A barren waste of mud and rubble in front of the Officers' Mess was paved beautifully with bricks by the Italians to form an ornamental garden with neat paths across from the road. Parking areas were extended by means of demolition rubble and concrete covered over with ashes from the camp's boilerhouses.

The Group Captain encouraged self-entertainment on the station, and frequent dances were held. My wife and I attended one of these dances in the Sergeants' Mess, and were impressed by the good organisation behind the event. Few outsiders were present, the W.A.A.F.s on the station providing the female element at the dance. A pantomime was organised and proved so successful that the Unit produced it in the town's public hall for charity. Later in the winter a concert was arranged, and my wife and I attended. It was not by any means an amateurish affair, the standard all round being very high. A young Canadian tenor and a W.A.A.F. contralto were outstanding, and it was obvious that they were experienced in concert appearances. In addition to the concerts regular film shows were given, in spite of the fact that Beccles had been denied the luxury of a cinema hall which almost all other stations had been given as part of their normal provisions. The end of a large room in the Sergeants' Mess was partitioned off by means of blackout curtains stretched on salvage wood framing, and safety film was used in a portable projector.

It was a pity that a sad affair should spoil the good name which the station had built for itself in the district. As I drove along the road into the station one morning on my way to Blaza's office I saw a group of men standing by the roadside at the junction of a lane. I paid little attention to the men as I passed, and did not mention them to Blaza. As I talked to him in his office I sensed an atmosphere amongst the staff, an unaccustomed quietness which was most noticeable in the girl who did the clerical work. Usually she was vivacious and cheerful, but on that morning she had merely acknowledged my greeting and passed on into her office. Blaza too did not appear to be taking much interest in what I was saying. As I was speaking to him a foreman entered the room.

"The Inspector says will we got the men in at three o'clock this afternoon for questioning," said the man. "What's happened?" I asked Blaza.

"Why - didn't you see as you came in?" he queried. "A W.A.A.F.'s been murdered - she's lying in the ditch right on the main road."

I was given the details, such as were known, and Jack Blaza told me that one of the A.M.W.D. stokers had found the girl in the ditch as he passed along the road to sign on for the early-morning shift. He would not have seen her but for the fact that her hand was reaching up on to the road. She had been strangled. On making enquiries it was found that the girl, a telephone operator, should have reported for duty at midnight in the Operations building, and she apparently met her death whilst on her way there from the W.A.A.F. site farther down the road.

The body was still lying where it had been found when I eventually left the site. It was not moved until after the arrival of Scotland Yard men in the evening.

Beccles was a sad place after the tragic event. Detectives slashed at fences in search of clues, all the A.M.W.D. and many service personnel were questioned and re-questioned. We learned that the girl was one of a small party who had been guests at a dance at the American station near Bungay on the night of the murder, and she had been brought home in an American truck. Suspicion rested on the Americans at Bungay, and the whole district was agog with the sensation. The night after the murder the lights failed on the Technical site, and a terrified W.A.A.F. driver had to get a van and drive down into the town to collect Jack Blaza. She was in such a highly nervous condition that Blaza made her a drink before returning with her to the station. Barbed wire was strung round the W.A.A.F. site and a stout gate was fixed at the site entrance to give the W.A.A.F.s a sense of security. On the following Thursday night my wife was returning from her singing lesson at nine o'clock when a street-corner loafer whistled at her. She ran all the way home and arrived at the house breathless and agitated.

Various rumours were circulating for a few days; one man swore that he had seen the police marching a man off in handcuffs; rumour had it that a bicycle lamp was a missing clue; and it was said that Scotland Yard knew the murderer all the time and were waiting for him to give himself away with a false move. At last the arrest was made, and my wife and I were shocked to find that the man came from Colne, our home town. I did not even know that there was a Colne man on the station, and the arrest brought me into the affair then in a most unpleasant way. Did I know the man? what was his family like? and many other questions were asked of me on and off the station by inquisitive sensation-mongers.

Eventually the man was tried and found guilty, and he died a murderer's death at Norwich. I was glad that the American station at Bungay was cleared of public suspicion at least, as too many people were willing to condemn the G.Is. in any case for the nature of their associations with the opposite sex.

Halesworth was not vacant for many weeks. A longer respite would have been welcome as Air Ministry had arranged for the main runway to be surfaced with asphalt when repairs were completed, and the asphalting contractor was ready to come on the site as soon as we were in a position to give him the runway. Before our reinstatement work was finished the advance party moved in, and a Major introduced himself as the future Ground Executive Officer of the new Unit. He was a bullet-headed thick-set man with a hoarse voice and a confiding attitude which I found rather overfacing. He told us that the Unit was the only American Air-sea Rescue squadron in the European Theatre of operations, and that there would be an interesting variety of aircraft on the ground in a few days. In the meantime the Major wanted certain redecoration jobs to be done, and we set about dealing with his requests. A few days later an aircraft flew in, Platten and I were called to the old Combat Mess, and there we met the Commanding Officer and his senior staff. The C.O. was a full Colonel of indeterminate age, probably nearing fifty. He had a pasty complexion, with red-rimmed watery eyes and colourless lips. His short-cropped hair was greying rapidly, and I reflected after meeting him that he looked a sick man. Looking back on the events that followed I am convinced that my first impression was correct. The Colonel was a very sick man, and it was the kind of sickness that could not be put in terms of diet or mechanical strains. How sick he was may be judged from our experiences under his command during the six months of his rule of authority at Halesworth.

Aircraft began to appear in a steady stream, and the air and ground crews were finally settled on the station. A drive round the field was filled with surprises for a visitor. As you entered the station the first aircraft to be seen were Flying Fortresses. They were the old camouflaged aircraft, battle veterans, and in their old age they had been given new duties. Under their bodies were fixed huge lifeboats, keels almost touching the ground under the tail wheel, and I was told that once a Fortress had taken off with its unweildy cargo it could not touch down again without first dropping the lifeboat. The bounce of touchdown would smash the stern and propellors of the boat against the runway. The Fortresses were therefore sent out only on definite calls, and not on routine patrol. The aircraft used for patrol purposes were the obsolescent Thunderbolts, and a cluster of those clumsy-looking fighters stood over by the far hangar. Under each wing was fixed a large rectangular box, and on enquiry I round that each box contained a rubber dinghy which could be released to drop to the rescue of aircraft survivors. Farther round the perimeter track stood the pride of the squadron - a group of graceful white-painted Catalinas, amphibious aircraft which were ideally suited to air-sea rescue work because of their manoeuverability, their very low stalling speed which enabled them almost to hover over a point, and their roomy cabin space. Climbing rails had been fixed under the aircraft wings, and the interior of the fuselage was wonderfully well equipped with first-aid kit and food.

A collection of American fighters occupied a group of standings at another part of the field. These were used for patrol, escort of damaged aircraft, and protection of ditched aircraft or survivors pending arrival of a lifeboat or a Catalina. Finally the visitor saw a flight of Liberators standing near the Watch Office. They were of unusual appearance, as they had been painted black and bore no markings. They had no guns, and their nose and tail turrets were glazed with perspex without openings for armament. It was some time before I realised the function of the Liberators, and only when their operation interfered with our concreting did I come to know the type of work they were doing. The whole of the 8th Air Force depended on the weather information which the Liberators collected daily, for at dawn each day the aircraft took off and flew along the routes proposed for the morning missions, took meteorologjcal readings, and prepared reports which were transmitted to the operational briefing rooms. The Meteorological Flight came to be known as the "Dawn Patrol," and nothing was to be allowed to prevent the aircraft taking off in the early hours of each morning.

Near the Liberators a solitary twin-engined medium bomber stood on its dispersal. This was the Colonel's special aircraft, and we learned that he piloted the machine himself. He had been a commercial airline pilot in peacetime and he was outstanding in his proficiency with instrument flying.

There were naturally many minor barrack repairs required after the sudden departure of the Bomb Group, and Platten was very busy on maintenance work for some weeks. We could not possibly deal with all requests at once, especially as we were decorating Messes at the same time. I was surprised therefore when Platten burst into my office in a rage and told me of a conference to which he had been summoned that morning. He and the Station Engineer were called to the Colonel's Office, and they waited for some time in the corridor before being admitted to the room. The Station Engineer had been busy on a cable fault, and the waiting had lost him valuable time. The Commanding Officer sat at his desk, all the section officers sitting on chairs facing him, and as the Station Engineer entered the office and asked if he might be excused as soon as possible because of his cable fault, the Colonel leered at him, pointed to a chair, and ordered him to sit down. As my two men took their places the Colonel began a recital of all the outstanding items of work, and at the end he asked Platten what he going to be done about it. Platten tried to explain that all requests had come in at once - a natural thing when a new Unit came on site - and it was necessary to take the items in rotation. The Colonel then began a systematic review of the items, and asked the officers concerned to state their case. Platten was astounded; the officers had been to his office with their requests and had accepted his method of dealing with them on a priority basis. In front of the Colonel however he found that they seemed to have forgotten all that he had arranged with them, and there was no word of support from a single officer. Platten and the Station Engineer found themselves ranged without any means of defence against a solid atmosphere of censure, with not a good word from any officer to support their own defence. At the and of a wordy battle the Colonel eyed Platten meditatively.

"Mr. Platten, I've had Clerks of Works removed from their posts before today," he said.

Walter Platten was short and thickset, with an inbred toughness which had been developed in him during a hard training as bricklayer. He had also lived with Americans long enough to understand them, and he was justifiably proud of the esteem in which he was held at Metfield. He rose to his feet and faced the Colonel squarely.

"Is that a threat, Colonel?" he asked. "Because if it is you can go ahead right now - I shall be glad to leave the station."

The Commanding Officer apparently had not been prepared for this. He had played himself into an awkward situation in front of his staff, and Platten said that he was silent for a moment, staring at the Clerk of Works, then at last he explained that the remark was not intended as a threat, but that he was only trying to impress on the A.M.W.D. the urgency and importance of the work in hand. There was nothing left to say, and the meeting closed.

Platten told me that he would not deal with the Colonel after that, and would not attend any further conferences except on my instructions and in my company. I accepted his arrangement as quite justified, and regretted that the Colonel had not asked me to be present at the meeting in the first place.

Lieutenant Buck had remained behind in charge of Flying Control after the Bomb Group left, and he was most unhappy with the new Unit. His private war with the A.M.W.D. had long since come to an end, and we found that he preferred to eat with us in the Mess rather than mix with the new officers. He told me that he had applied for posting, and when at last his transfer papers arrived he left the station without saying goodbye to anyone except the A.M.W.D.

I cornered the Ground Executive officer in Platten's room one day, and expressed my feelings about the meeting which had been arranged with the sole purpose of bullying the Clerk of Works and Station Engineer. The Major explained that the Colonel had an unfortunate way of saying things, but he meant no harm. I would not accept that excuse, and the Major was told that in future all requests for work must come through my office, and any complaints were to be addressed to me. He was very disturbed at my attitude, and Platten and I were moved to pity for the man when he launched into the story of his own experiences with the Colonel. The Major was a regular Army officer; he was paid for the acting rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, but had never been given the silver leaf. He unfolded an incredible story of frustration and repression which he bad suffered under the Colonel, and be told us that all the officers in the Unit moved about on duty in fear of their Commanding Officer. He confessed that on one occasion when his spirit rebelled against the Colonel he had told him that but for his uniform he would take him in his two hands and crush the life out of him.

We discovered supporting evidence later of the hatred which the Commanding Officer had brought about his person. On one occasion, we were told, the Colonel went alone on a flight in his aircraft, and a technical fault developed. He had great difficulty in making a landing, and was convinced that the machine had been tampered with. From that day onwards he never flew alone, but always made one of his officers accompany him. I felt a kind of pity for him when I heard that story, the sort of pity that one feels momentarily for a rat that is cornered by a dog. The man was obsessed by the thought that he had enemies, the knowledge that some of his men would not stop even at murder if they ever got the chance; it must have preyed on his mind a good deal when he was alone. As I am interested in people, and find a fascination in observing the character and behaviour of those I meet, I found myself trying to form a picture of the mental make-up reflected in the Colonel's actions. Before he left the station my conclusions were that he was unfit to be in charge of men, was in fact a danger to any officer over whom be held authority, and was the most hated man I have ever known.

Added to the tyranny which he exercised over all with whom he came in contact there was a baffling inconsistency. In the dining hall of the former Combat Mess the Bomb Group had decorated each gable wall with a large-scale figure of a girl clad in scanty beach apparel. The paintings were the work of an artist, and there was nothing objectionable about them; they were super pin-up girls such as might be found in any issue of the American journal "Esquire". In redecorating the room prior its use as an Officers' Mess Platten had been requested to leave the figures intact, and the painters had picked out the distemper around the paintings with care. When the Colonel saw them he instructed us to obliterate them at once and we thought that perhaps he was a prude. But after the Unit settled down the Commarding Officer arranged weekend dances in the Mess, and cleared a building for use as a dormitory for female guests. The dormitory soon got a bad name, and Military Police were posted to guard the building overnight after each dance. The Major had a girl-friend who visited the station for those weekends, but the Colonel told him that his association with the woman must cease; he went so far as to warn the Major that he must choose between his girl-friend and his military career. The Colonel's action would appear to be right and proper except for the fact that he himself was in the habit of entertaining a woman regularly at weekends. She was the only woman I ever saw in the Officers' Mess at mealtimes.

A notice was pinned in the Officers' club to the effect that any officer entering the clubroom with his hat on must pay for drinks all round. The Colonel entered the room one day wearing his hat, and a reckless officer jokingly drew his attention to the notice. The reply was that the Colonel would go anywhere he pleased with his hat on, as he considered himself always on duty. Another example of the man's complex mental make-up was demonstrated to me as I passed along a narrow country lane. The Unit had devised a one-way traffic system round the Mess site and along, the lane because of the narrow roads. Only one man broke the regulations; the Commanding Officer. I was travelling along the lane in the right direction when the Colonel's huge black car swung round a bend and forced me into the side. He did not so much as stop to see if I had ditched the car.

The Christmas holiday came as a great relief to me, and my wife and I packed our bags and caught an early train for a week at home. One bag was filled with Christmas fare, and I was glad that it would return empty on the return journey. We had been able to obtain a turkey, and a relation had asked us to buy her a duck. There was a box of chestnuts, another box filled with some of Carlson's candies - they were a joy to my many nephews and nieces - and an assortment of Christmas gifts. All these items were in the one case, and it seemed that the load grew in weight as I struggled to the railway station. There was a magnificent holly tree in our Beccles garden, and we decided to take some of its berry-laden sprigs for decorations. We arrived home very tired after an eleven-hour journey, but at least we had left the atmosphere of work many miles behind, and we set about enjoying a full programme of family parties.

On December 28th we rose early and hurried to the station in the frosty morning air to catch the 7.35 a.m. train. The Christmas holiday had been characterised by rain and comparatively mild weather, but on the morning of our return there were several degrees of frost and thick fog. We stood shivering on the platform, and a train drew in. It was not for us; fog had delayed an earlier train, and as it picked up its passengers we stamped our feet and mentally wished the coach out of the station so that ours could draw in. We were still waiting half an hour later, but at last the London train appeared and we got in thankfully.

The train stopped at Stockport and the London section was shunted into a bay to await connection to a following train. I went along to the refreshment bar and bought two cups of tea whilst we waited. We were armed with a flask of coffee, but I felt that it would be wise to save that for a later stage of the journey; it was as well that we did. Two hours later we were still waiting for the connection, and the coaches had gone cold since the engine had been unhooked and the heating ceased.

At length the train arrived and we crawled along in the thickening fog. Six hours later we drew into Watford, and were instructed to leave the train and await a connection. We eventually reached Euston Station, and dashed for the Tube in the hope that there would still be a train leaving Liverpool Street for Beccles. On arrival at the L.N.E.R. station we searched the destination panel for a train, but the last had gone five hours earlier. The nearest station to Beccles which could be reached that night was Norwich, and at nearly eleven o'clock we crowded into a compartment with a number of servicemen and A.T.S. We arrived at Norwich to find that no trains were running towards Beccles. The next train was scheduled to run to Lowestoft a few hours later and we dragged ourselves wearily to the waiting room to pass the time resting as best we could. We were thoroughly chilled by the time the Lowestoft train arrived at the station, as the waiting room firegrate was empty and a cold blast entered the room every time the door was opened. The compartment in the train had barely warmed us when we reached Lowestoft to find that a train would not be leaving for Beccles for nearly an hour.

At eight-fifteen on the morning of 29th of December we left the train and walked wearily to our house. We had been travelling for twenty-five hours. The house was cold and cheerless, and I hastened to make a fire. I went to wash my hands, and discovered that the pipes were frozen, and it was necessary to bring electric radiators into kitchen and bathroom and thaw the pipes before I left for the office. I decided to call at Beccles R.A.F. station first, and on arrival there I found Blaza overwhelmed with reports of bursts throughout the camp. I reflected that the long fatiguing journey from the north had hardly been justified considering the reception we had received on arrival at our destination.

Snow fell after a few days of frost, and the Units were soon busy ploughing, sanding and salting the runways. Every available piece of transport was used at Beccles, and when the falls of snow came thicker the Group Captain himself worked on the runway; Blaza told me that the C.O. stood on the blade of a snow plough to hold it down as the lorry struggled to push the crisp frozen snow aside.

An airfield is a very large area to clear of snow; the average bomber field has a little short of a quarter of a million square yards of concrete in its runways, a hundred thousand more in the perimeter track, and up to fifty aircraft standings each covering three quarters of an acre. The main runway, which is the one laid along the direction of the prevailing wind, was always cleared first, and the perimeter track was usually treated next, as it was used by vehicles as well as aircraft. Snow clearing never was completed when another fall covered the areas treated. It was always a losing game. Fortunately the snow did not have to be removed completely as on main roads, so long as there was no danger of icing and so long as the runway lighting could be seen. I stood at the end of a runway one evening during the frosty period waiting beside the chequered control caravan whilst a Warwick taxied to position, opened the throttle of both engines and rushed down the runway to take off. The runway lights were on, and fantail beams glowed from the slits in the flat iron domes set on the edge of the runway, looking like sprays of gleaming silver lying on the powdery clean snow. As the aircraft engines revved up to carry the Warwick along the smooth shining white runway a whirl of powdered snow, fine as sugar, rose in the air and seemed to follow the tail of the machine in a dancing spiral. The blanket of snow had a muffling effect which made the huge grey shape seem almost unreal as it floated noiselessly away from me into the darkness. An ex-pilot of the R.A.F. will probably smile and think "This chap's an incurable romantic - a pilot goes off at night in icing conditions, probably over the sea, and a Works and Bricks fellow stands watching him and thinks how beautiful it is." Well, I just happen to be made that way, and living and working amongst operational units was made fuller and more satisfying by the occasional moments when I could stand in rapt wonder, in awe or in sheer fascination inspired by the skill of a pilot or the beauty of an aircraft formation.

John Reading, the London correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald whom I had met on board the ship which brought me home from Australia in 1942, wrote to say goodbye prior to his departure for New York. We replied in great haste to ask if he would spend a few days with us in Beccles, and I took a few days' leave so that we could be free to enjoy his company to the full. During the daytime we trudged the lanes, enjoying the sound of crunching snow and the beauty of the frosted patterns in the hedgerows. In the evenings we settled by a blazing log fire with books or cards, and all too soon the holiday came to an end. Only two or three days after John's departure my wife roused me from a deep sleep and told me that water was running somewhere in the house. I slipped on a dressing-gown and looked in the bathrooms but the taps were silent and there were no burst pipes. I rushed into the back bedroom, to find a steady trickle of water running through the ceiling on to the middle of the bed which John had used only a few nights previously. We rescued the blankets and covers, pushed the bed to one side, and for the rest of the night I was constantly jumping out of bed to empty tin baths and buckets. Early next morning I went for a nearby property repairer, noticing as I hurried along the road that the snow was melting and the thaw had begun. A long ladder was reared against the back of the house and the man reported that a lead gutter which took the rainwater from two slopes of roof had filled solid with snow and had frozen. As the snow on the slates melted it had run to the gutter, been unable to flow along the channel because of the ice, and so had found its way through the slates and into the back bedroom.

As I drove up the road to my Halesworth office the white drift was turning slushy under the wheels of traffic, and on the runways the side drains were showing black through the rapidly melting snow. The concreting which had been hold up owing to the frosts could be resumed in a couple of days if the thaw continued.

But with the thaw came a discovery which set our programme back for weeks. On the first day of repairs Thomas came to my office and asked me to look at the runways. We went to the main runway first, and I gasped as I saw the surface of the concrete. It was as if some powerful force had removed the cement from the concrete overnight, for the surface was loose and crumbly like damp oatmeal. For a depth of four inches in places it was an easy matter to scrape up the concrete with the toe of your shoe. We examined the whole field, and it was estimated that some sixty thousand square yards of concrete had been damaged. If we were obliged to replace all the areas as well as the ordinary repair work we should be two months later with our programme than we had thought. I told Thomas to brush the areas clean, and I would inspect them individually and decide what we must do. I inspected Metfield and Beccles to see if they had suffered in the same way, but the runways there showed little sign of frost damage. After a few days of inspection I formed my theory as to why Halesworth had met with the disaster. Heavy rains falling before the sudden frost had soaked into the poor-quality concrete, the clay subsoil had held the water, and so the concrete was saturated when the freeze-up occurred. The frozen concrete had shattered when the water in it expanded, and the thaw had shown up the crumbled surface. Beccles, whose runways were still well covered with new tar, had shed the water before it soaked through the concrete. Metfield's runways were also less worn off than Halesworth, and the subsoil at Metfield drained more efficiently than Halesworth's impervious clay.

When the frost-damaged areas were brushed clean I was glad to see that in many parts the damage was only superficial, and I decided to dress the bays with a thin carpet of asphalt. Where the concrete had crumbled to a considerable depth, however, we were forced to break it out and put down new material. Fitzpatricks brought in rollers and spraying tanks and once more proved their efficiency with the progress they made.

At length the main runway was completed. The advantage of using asphalt for carpeting the frost-weakened areas was that Ftzpatricks could turn on to the runway at short notice and leave a few minutes before a take-off, so that much larger areas could be done in one day than was possible with concreting. The next stage was the preparation for the asphalt contractors, and I rang up Headquarters to ask for them to commence on the station. The first men to arrive on the site were two employees of a sub-contractor who had been engaged by the asphalt firm to burn the old wood chips and tar off the runway surface, and they started work with a low burner towed behind a lorry loaded with drums of oil.

The two men narrowly escaped death on a Sunday afternoon a few days after they had started work. They were in the middle of the main runway, one man driving the lorry at a crawl and the other following the burner. Suddenly a Flying Fortress appeared in the sky, and without warning prepared to land on the field. The bomber was not heading for the runway in use, but straight for the spot where the burn-off men were working. With seconds to spare the men left their equipment and dashed for safety, and the Fortress crashed into the lorry and burst into flames. Hardly a trace of the fuselage was left, and all that remained of the contractor's plant was burnt-out wreckage.

The asphalting contractors brought their spreaders and rollers on site, and soon a smooth ribbon of asphalt two and a half inches thick lay along the runway edge. The spreader moved to the side and laid another band to join up with the first, and in a few days we were well on the way towards completion of the main runway. Once the carpet was laid we know our troubles were over.

Whilst the asphalting was in progress at Halesworth a message came from Metfield asking me to go over to meet some American Officers who were making enquiries about the station. On arrival there I was informed that a unit of the American Air Transport Command intended to occupy the station, and a Major would be calling later with proposals for conversion of buildings.

I met the Major, and we discussed his requirements. Two large buildings on the edge of the airfield were to be adapted to use as Passenger Terminal buildings, with accommodation for Immigration and Customs officials, briefing of pilots, and passengers' rest rooms. A living site was to be improved to make comfortable quarters for Very Important People, and numerous modifications were required in Mess buildings. The work required was very extensive, and I suggested that we ought to go to Newmarket to discuss the scheme. Plans were prepared by a G.I. draughtsman who accompanied the Major, and after a few days we took the plans to the District Engineer's office and then to my Area Headquarters. There was something urgent about the scheme, something which I could not fathom, and the requests were dealt with rapidly at higher levels. We were asked to put all the men possible into the work, and Halesworth was robbed of tradesmen to get the scheme under way.

The Unit moved in, and I met the Commanding Officer, a Lieutenant-Colonel Ward who was new to the country. The Clerk of Works, a man called George Hawksworth who had taken over from Platten the previous Autumn, found that he was dealing with a Unit who had no experience in Air Ministry methods, and I was a little dismayed to think that we must start all over again establishing an organisation amongst Americans who did not understand our system. Colonel Ward was friendly and kind, but he was too easily persuaded by his officers into approval of their schemes, and if we could not carry out the schemes he thought we were unco-operative. The Unit could not understand why larger stoves should not be placed in barrack huts; we tried to explain that the replacements were almost unobtainable. They put forward schemes for central heating which we could not hope to complete for months even if we obtained permission. The Colonel was particularly exasperated at the overworked Station Engineer's inability to carry out the many schemes of lighting and heating which were put forward, and for some weeks the Metfield A.M.W.D. did not know which way to turn. At long last the two most important buildings - the Passenger Terminal and Operations buildings - were completed, and Dakotas and Skymasters flew in with passengers and freight. We discovered that American businessmen and Government officials were the principal passengers, and it was a strange sight after all the years of uniforms to see civilians using the Messes and walking about the station.

The Colonel was particularly anxious to dispense with blackouts, and by slow degrees the asbestos panels were replaced by glass in ablutions and other buildings. It was clear that the Unit thought the War was as good as won, for they removed blackout curtains from the Mess buildings and Red Cross reading rooms, so that at night the whole site was twinkling invitingly with bright lights.

The War was in fact as good as won, but that did not prevent a sneak raider from darting over Metfield late one Saturday night; the swift low-flying enemy aircraft strafed the buildings with his guns and left as unexpectedly as he had appeared. A line of jagged holes perforated the Red Cross reading room. Nobody was hurt. Barrack huts showed signs of bullets in their flimsy walls and roofs; their occupants escaped injury. In one hut the only vacant bed had a bullet hole clean through it. The bullet had entered the hut through the wall a few inches above the floor, ricocheted off the concrete and passed upwards through the bed and out of the roof. The G.I. who should have been using the bed was on duty on the airfield. He was a wireless operator, and he sat in a tiny hut about five feet square, a portable plywood affair which the Unit had placed almost dead central in the middle of the airfield. One bullet passed through the hut and killed the G.I. an he sat on his chair facing the instrument panel. He was the only casualty, and had he not been on duty but in bed he would have been killed that night just the same.

Still the Unit made no attempt to improve their blackout arrangements, and on the following Saturday night a second sneak raider visited the station. He was flying very low indeed, too low for the two clusters of anti-personnel bombs which he released to fly apart and scatter their ten lethal components before striking the ground. One cluster hit the centre of the main runway, all ten of the small bombs exploding simultaneously to blow a neat rectangular hole in the concrete about five feet long, eighteen inches wide and a foot deep. The second cluster dropped on the ground just off the runway edge, and blew a crater about ten feet in diameter and four feet deep in the soft earth. Nobody was hurt. The twin-engined German bomber, who must have misjudged his height, could not pull out of his bomb-run and he crashed in a field after striking a tall hedge a few yards outside the perimeter of the airfield. The aircraft fragments were scattered for a distance of a hundred yards from the blackened gap in the edge where it had first struck, and a few days later the charred remains of four Luftwaffe fliers were interred in the nearby village churchyard.

The blackout showed a marked improvement after the second raid, and a request was made for blast-proof walls to be erected round the "greenhouse" on top of the Watch Office. We built the blast walls, but they were never used again. I think the sneak raiders which made Metfield their targets on those two Saturday nights must have been almost the last aircraft to fly over England, for a few days later Germany surrendered, and the war in Europe was over.