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RAF Eye, in Suffolk near Stowmarket, was one of the last heavy-bomber bases built in East Anglia during the Second World War. Constructed in 1943 as a standard ‘Class A’ airfield, it became operational in 1944 and carried the USAAF designation Station 134. Its layout followed the established heavy-bomber pattern: three concrete runways, extensive hardstandings, a perimeter track and a technical area designed to support the movement of large numbers of B-17 Flying Fortresses.
The airfield’s wartime identity is dominated by the 490th Bombardment Group (Heavy) of the Eighth Air Force. Operating B-17s, the group flew daylight missions against a wide range of targets across occupied Europe and Germany. A typical operational day began long before dawn with weather and intelligence briefings, then the steady build-up to mass take-off as aircraft taxied from dispersals, lined up, and departed in sequence to rendezvous with the bomber stream over East Anglia. The outbound leg could last hours, followed by intense minutes over the target where flak and fighters were most dangerous, and then the long, tense return with damaged aircraft and wounded crew.
Because Eye entered service in 1944, its operational period sits squarely in the decisive phase of the air war. Missions supported the Normandy invasion, attacking transport links and defences to isolate the battlefield and disrupt German movement. As the Allied armies advanced, the group’s targets shifted to rail marshalling yards, bridges, and industrial sites deeper in Germany, contributing to the broader effort to break enemy production and mobility. Late-war operations also supported the response to the Ardennes offensive and the final drive toward the Rhine, when bomber forces attacked communication lines and supply networks feeding the front.
Life on a B-17 station depended on an enormous ground organisation. Armourers loaded bombs and ammunition; fitters and engine mechanics worked to keep serviceability high; signals and operations staff tracked aircraft movements; medical teams prepared for casualties; and security and fire units stood ready for accidents. Even the airfield’s geography mattered: Suffolk’s mix of flat farmland and scattered villages provided the space for dispersal and the routes for constant convoys of fuel and bombs.
Eye’s story also includes its afterlife. Like many USAAF bases, it rapidly demobilised after 1945, but the scale of infrastructure left a strong imprint on the landscape. Memorials and heritage trails help connect modern visitors to the wartime community that existed there for a brief but intense period.
RAF Eye is therefore best understood as a late-war ‘workhorse’ of the daylight bomber offensive: a station built when Allied air power was reaching peak maturity, and one that delivered concentrated effort during the final, decisive year of the campaign in Europe.
For many veterans, Eye was remembered as a place of intense routine punctuated by moments of fear: the long wait for returning aircraft, the anxious count of empty dispersals, and the sudden relief when damaged Fortresses made it back over the coast. Those human moments are inseparable from the statistics of the bomber offensive.