When America came to live next door
OVER nearly 50 years Wethersfield, Essex, became used to having “America” living next door. The first American servicemen to come to the RAF airfield on the edge of the village in 1944 belonged to a bomber group. They flew 140 highly dangerous bombing missions, losing 21 aircraft before they were moved to France in the wake of the D-Day invasion. Eighty-one American Dakotas from Wethersfield flew out British paratroops during the Battle of the Rhine in 1945 after which there was a break in the relationship until a fighter- bomber wing arrived in 1952.   It meant building a runway nearly two miles long for the new Super Sabre jets, swallowing up an historic farm house and much agricultural land. In 1970, the fighter-bombers moved out and Wethersfield became home to several ground units.			Airmen in their billet on the base in the 1950s
After disco nights at the base things could get a bit rowdy	In 1979 the Red Horse arrived (819th Rapid Emergency Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineering - work it out!). It meant building a runway nearly two miles long for the new Super Sabre jets, swallowing up an historic farm house and much agricultural land. A runway repair unit they made themselves very useful locally in such jobs as hoisting bells into a local church tower. They stayed until February 1990, when the airfield was handed back to the RAF. HOW did the two cultures get on together? “Everything had to be "large" for the Americans.” Max and Jo, two ladies who took their fish and chip van onto the airbase in the 1980s recalled that their arrival usually coincided with the base keep-fit club turning out and the overweight American wives always made a beeline for the van after their exertions. “They would ask for a large fish with large ‘fries’, a side order of scampi and an apple pie to top off their meal.” On Saturday disco nights the queue could get a bit out of hand so two armed guards were posted beside the van.
WHEN Art Walsh, now of Tucson, Arizona, was a radar operator on the base in the mid-1950s the airmen were not paid in ‘greenbacks’ – American dollars. They were issued with “make believe money” or “script” intended for spending in the camp shop. But a lot of script found its way into the hands of Wethersfield locals who would then hand it back to other Americans to purchase for them otherwise unavailable goodies such as silk stockings and canned fruit. So much script smuggling went on that cars were regularly searched as they left the base. Occasionally the current script would be declared to be zero or worthless and a new one would be issued, to the consternation of the black marketeers. American cigarettes were also valuable currency. “I had three nights bed and breakfast in a Paddington hotel for a carton of American cigarettes,” one airman recalled. The hotel owner would not have smoked them herself but would have traded them on for other goods.			Art Walsh was a radar operator at the base in the mid1950s
Young 'Yanks' at the airbase were a magnet for British girls	“Overpaid, over-sexed and over here,” the Americans might have been but there was surprisingly little friction between the two communities. “I know there was talk about fights and that sort of thing but we got on alright,” a villager remembered. “We used to have dances down the village hall and there would be about half of each and there was seldom any trouble.” True, the girls who packed the buses to go up to the base to partner the GIs at their dances gained a doubtful reputation but there were many genuine romances and in 1958 the base newspaper reported Wethersfield’s 1000th Anglo-American marriage.
		Click pictures to enlarge	next, the GI bride's story