RAF Bentwaters: America Comes to Suffolk
Following on from my UFO adventures, a drive around the corner to the USA. For 50 years after WW2, the Americans occupied a corner of Suffolk. 11,000 Americans worked in and around RAF Bentwaters.
On our UFO-hunting trip to RAF Woodbridge in Mendlesham Forest, we heard mention of RAF Bentwaters. The two bases were operated by the US Air Force in the Cold War and I noticed that there was a significant Cold War Museum over at Bentwaters. We could not believe our eyes.
America withdrew from both Woodbridge and Bentwaters in Suffolk in 1993. Although there is still a British MoD presence at both sites, the scale of operations today is a shadow of what went on here during the height of the Cold War.
Construction of the base began in 1942 but by then the urgency was already ebbing away. The fortunes of war fluctuated and neither the British RAF or the American USAF could fully commit to the base. It was immediately mothballed on completion before eventually becoming the last airfield ever to be activated during WW2 in November 1944. The final wartime mission took place on 9th May 1945. British people might recognise that this was the very day after V.E. Day, after Britain had already claimed victory over Nazi-occupied Europe.
Bentwaters played a miniscule role in WW2 but it was just getting started as a Cold War hub. The base closed again in July 1950. But on 16 March 1951, the RAF handed control of the base to the USAF. Things were about to get interesting, and the most famous chapter in the base’s history began.
A local man dressed as a US airman explained that his MK16 weapon could unleash all 30 bullets in a magazine in 3 seconds. He explained that one of the police cars was a fake used in one form of Batman or another. The other police car was genuine. Both were Chevrolet sedans. There was a truck and a jeep. The jeep was capable of dragging large planes around the runway and airfield.
The presentation by the airman really brought home that this was not just a museum for our entertainment. The prospect of all-out nuclear confrontation in the 1960s through to the late 1980s was very real. It was a constant backdrop to my pre-teen years and there were times when it was genuinely terrifying. Our family daytrips often took as past the “golf balls” early warning radar, part of the British four-minute warning system and there was nothing funny about them. I was thrilled to see a leaflet about them in a glass case at Bentwaters.
There were some fun and even funny moments though, including the staged alien autopsy that harks back to my own past as a science fiction author.
An afternoon at Bentwaters would thrill anyone born after WW2. It really is eye-opening and there is so much to see you will likely want to return. You can find out more about Bentwaters here, and even join the society, or follow them on Instagram.
Definitely getting your X-files fan book. Back in the 90s I had a boyfriend who was obsessed with that show and some of it rubbed off on me, though I was less interested in the storylines than the dynamic between Mulder and Scully. BTW there's a UFO zone in Ireland too, around Lough Key. Possibly something to do with the fact that the head of a UFO-spotters' club, the late Betty Meyler, lived nearby. I interviewed her for the Sunday World. Very glamorous and eccentric elderly lady. She lived in an old cottage in a forest and had a landing pad for UFOs in her garden, and loads of dragon ornaments around the house and garden (the kind you find in shops selling incense). She used to host a rather glitzy annual conference in the town of Carrick-on-Shannon, in a hotel best known for hen parties (it was called the Bush Hotel - I kid you not!). RIP Betty; I hope she's up there buzzing around in a flying saucer!