Parham Airfield Museum
(Station 153 Control Tower)
Establishes a Web Site

Our British friends have now established a web site for the control tower museum at Framlingham Station 153.  The web site is http://www.parhamairfieldmuseum.co.uk  The following three paragraphs are excerpted from their history presentation on the web site.

The date was January 1942. Great Britain was totally preoccupied with WWII. The ‘farmer/landowner’ was Percy Kindred who (together with younger brother Herman) was the Suffolk farmer/landowner of Crabbs and Park farms at Parham. Their lives were soon changed for ever. Construction of a Class ‘A’ airfield called for half a million tons of concrete, three diagonal runways, and a giant workforce. Rubble for hardcore was imported from bomb sites in London and Birmingham. 4,500,000 bricks were laid. Two enormous hangars appeared. (In No:2, Glenn Miller and the Band of the AEF performed before an audience said to number 6,000 in 1944.)

Although Suffolk had seen nothing like this before, there was more to come when the airfield was handed over, complete, to the United States 8th Army Air Force in early summer 1943, and redesignated ‘FRAMLINGHAM STATION 153’. After suffering disastrous losses in daylight air attacks on the Continent, the first Bombardment Group, the 95th, was transferred to nearby Horham to regroup. Replacing the 95th in July – the 390th were to operate B-17s ‘The Flying Fortress’ from Parham for the remainder of the War in Europe. In over 300 missions, they dropped 19,000 tons of bombs. They lost 181 aircraft and seven hundred and fourteen airmen were killed. Parham Airfield Museum is a Memorial to those men.

After the War in Europe, runways were broken up and land returned to the Kindred brothers. Buildings were allowed to dilapidate and, when not pulled apart, were used for farm storage. Many of those still standing are now ‘collectors’ items’. Among them was the Control Tower shot up and abandoned after the Americans held a riotous farewell party there in August 1945. With STATION 153 now neglected, windowless and derelict, a dedicated and determined group of volunteer enthusiasts, working with Founding Chairman Ronald Buxton, entered into a five year task of restoration in 1976. Support for this entirely self-funded project was given by Percy Kindred until the day he died in 1996. The Tower was finally dedicated as the 390th Bombardment Group Memorial Air Museum of the USAAF on 13th May 1981 and, since then, has remained in active contact with, and received steadfast support, from, US veterans, their relatives, supporters and Friends. Indeed, Mrs Joseph A. Moller, the widow of the Bomb Group’s outstanding Commanding Officer, is a Patron of Parham Airfield Museum.