02/03/2024
MASTERS OF THE AIR ✈️ 🇺🇸
During WWII, the 100th Bomb Group earned its nickname the ‘Bloody Hundredth’ due to staggering losses of planes and personnel. Young men, often just out of high school, flew in unproven and unpressurised aircraft in freezing temperatures against a relentless enemy, who filled the air with hail storms of bullets and nearly impenetrable walls of flak.
Every mission meant facing daunting odds of the near-certainty of never returning; and, if they did return, they had to do it again the next day, and the next, and the day after after that. By the end of the war, a combat airman had to survive 35 missions to be sent home.
📕 Their legendary stories are retold in the book, Masters of the Air, by Donald L Miller. 📺 The Apple TV series of the same name tells the story of the 100th Bomb Group, which operated B-17 Flying Fortress bombers from an airfield at Thorpe Abbotts, Norfolk. Produced by Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks, the finale episode is due to be released on 15 March.
🇬🇧 Book a stay at Cliff Cottage, Sheringham, and visit the 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum at Thorpe Abbotts: a place where 1000s of young US airmen began their daylight missions over Nazi-occupied Europe. Pay tribute to the very real sacrifice for those airmen who gave their lives in defence of freedom.
🗺️ Explore Beeston Hill and discover the ‘Y’ Station equipment . During the war, Beeston Hill was manned by German-speaking Wrens (Women’s Royal Naval Service). Wrens intercepted coded intelligence sent between German E-Boats, which was then sent on to Bletchley Park and the War Office in London. Remarkably, Wrens were based in the house nextdoor to Cliff Cottage, Sheringham, called The Bluff.
✈️ Norwich International Airport - 35 mins by car
🇺🇸 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum, Thorpe Abbotts - 1hr 19 min by car
🌊 Sheringham Museum - 5 min walk
🕵🏻♀️ Beeston Hill ‘Y’ Station - 7 min walk
Head to link in bio to book a stay.
