European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 30, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Above a maintenance shop framed by a deteriorating doorway lies silent and unused. Right Lavenham s Only remaining runway refuses to die. A a it a Vav a ? no amp % a amp Vsev Vvs s i pc a was it a a x is i a a a a Vsev it x i it Tui Nike l Iron Page 3 another Hall mile or so the b-1 7 will make up its own Miziul whether in s going to Fly. You wont know for Sun until you can count every Leaf on those Trees charging at you Troni the other end of the runway at to Mill s an hour. At times like this it s a real love hate relationship you a gut with this Metal mistress. When the Meadow tinally turns into a verdant blur and All you can Larink about is those Trees you keep the bomber glued to the runway wringing every last mile per hour out of the remaining Ini ires of Cement. When there s no More Cement left and the co Pilot sucks in his breath you know it s time to pull Back on the control wheel. The massive Condor bounces a couple of times and with a Little coaxing. Pleading. Swearing. It Breaks free of the ground inching its Way Over the treetops Arr toward the sky. Spectacular takeoffs became almost commonplace for flight Crews of the . 8th air Force Hying out of the farm Fields of tire English Countryside in the second Quot great War Quot both men and machines were asked to do far More than they were Ever designed to do. Sometimes they were not up to the task. Lire numbers were always against their. By 19-14, the average lifespan of a b-1 7 and its Crew was 1 5 missions. Urey were assigned 25. An overloaded b-1 7 was terribly unforgiving of any momentary lapse of attention on the part of its Pilot. The War May have made men out of boys but it also made junkyards out of air planes. In the air a fully armed and tightly flown formation of b-17s could throw 30 tons of Lead per minute into the svy Arni it enemy fighters surrounding it. But still the. Lighters would find a Hole and punch their Way through. Fighting the numbers was a Way of life but it was no Way to . The War is gone now and so Are most of the Crews and their air planes but what happens to old airfields when they die1 with a bit of Luck maybe they Don t die at All. Maybe they just live on in the rolling Meadows of East Airfield clings tenaciously to its past in the Suffolk Farmland a Little Over a mile North of the town of l Venham and 10 Miles Southeast of Bury St. Edmunds. T Here smack in the Middle of the John Pawsey farm lies a sprawling tribute to the members of the 487th bomb stripes Magazine May 30, 1991
