We rewind the clock on London Stansted Airport this week as we take a look at the UK’s fourth busiest airport back in the 1940s and 50s, when it was a base to the US Air Force.
The decision was taken by the British government and American military in 1942 to build a US Air Force base at Stansted.
In 1944 the airfield became fully operational but had an unexpected arrival in 1943 from a battle-damaged RAF Short Sterling bomber.
Stansted soon became the 9th largest US Air Force base in East Anglia and became home to the 344th Bomb group, known as the ‘Silver Streaks’ consisting of four squadrons of B-26 Marauder bombers.
D-Day saw the Stansted bombers leading 600 aircraft over the beaches of France to attack enemy positions. In July 1944 the bomb group received a Distinguished Unit Citation for three days of intense action supporting the allied invasion.
By August 1945, the US forces had moved out but they returned in the 1950s to strengthen and extend the runway, leaving the airport with what remains to this day, one of the UK’s longest runways.
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