Visit to Debach Airfeild Museum
On a really beautiful afternoon in June well over 30 Museum Friends found their way (not without some difficulty!) to the 493rd Bomb Group Museum on Debach airfield. We were met by Richard Taylor, the owner of the land, his wife Prilly and a group of enthusiastic volunteers, who showed us round the site. It was built between 1942 and 1944 by two black Engineer Battalions of the U.S. Army, and occupied from June 1944 to July 1945 by the 493rd Bomb Group. Prominent on display was a trailer on which were ten large bombs, now decommissioned but stark reminders of what the site was all about. In the first months huge four engined B-24 Liberator bombers carried these bombs and after that B-17 Flying Fortresses. Each had a crew of 10. The size of these planes was illustrated by a striking photograph of airmen, 60 of them, standing shoulder to shoulder on the wings and fuselage of one of the bombers,. The 493rd sent 161 missions across the channel. 41 aircraft went missing in action, and 234 personnel lost their lives while serving at Debach
The museum consists of 6 buildings, each giving a flavour of how thing were during World War ll. In one there was a hospital display, with equipment for dentistry and operations, much of it designed to be portable. We saw nursing and airforce uniforms of the time, and a great many artefacts which had been dug up on the site, as well as a very large scale model of a Liberator bomber.
One building was given over to a display of life on the home front in wartime, with 3 rooms furnished as a kitchen, a parlour and a living room. The kitchen was particularly interesting as it was full of tins and packets which many of us remembered from our childhood. For me the grey and blue national dried milk tins were particularly nostalgic – my mother organised their distribution in our village.
Anderson and Morrison shelters were on show in another building, and a B-17 engine. There was also a most realistic bomb damage display.
The control tower has been left largely as it was when it was in use. From the top there was a superb view of the airfield , dipping away slightly on all sides. (The site had been chosen because it was a high point in the area.) The countryside, with its green crops and patches of woodland, was peaceful in the sunshine. It would have been very different during the war, when more than 2000 airmen were stationed on the base.
Before leaving we were shown a display of airforce vehicles, such as would have been often seen driving in the lanes round about (although not always on the left side of the road!), all of them lovingly maintained and in working order. It had been a most interesting afternoon, and the Museum Friends are very grateful to the volunteer guides who showed us round.
Daphne Lloyd