TM1972 : The Red Feather Club
taken 9 years ago, near to Denham Street, Suffolk, England
RAF Horham is located to the south-east of Eye and straddles the parishes of Denham, Horham, Redlingfield and Hoxne. Built for the Royal Air Force (RAF) it was one of the earliest heavy bomber bases opened in East Anglia. In 1942, the base was handed over to the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and designated Station 119. The aerodrome's history and a number of original buildings are preserved at two local museums - the 95th Bomb Group Hospital Museum > Link and the nearby 95th Bomb Group Museum > Link.
During WW2 the US Army Air Force (USAAF) occupied many of the aerodromes in East Anglia. In their spare time some of the servicemen decorated the walls of the buildings they lived and spent some time in with graffiti and murals. The 'noses' of many of their aircraft too were often embellished with paintings and, presumably to boost morale, bombing missions flown and downed enemy aircraft were recorded by either painting bombs or swastikas, often several rows of them, onto their aircraft. Others drew personal mission boards onto the walls of their barracks huts. Skillfully executed paintings depicting aircraft, semi-clad women, cartoon characters or landscape scenes have also been recorded. Some of this wartime artwork has been preserved in restored buildings and some has been extracted and is now on display in museums, but much remains in situ, often unrecorded, deteriorating in decades-old damp buildings and sadly, a lot has already been lost.