398th Bombardment Group

The Mighty 8th

398th Insignia "Hell From Heaven

The 398th Bombardment Group was originally activated at Ephrata Army Air Base, Washington, on March 1, 1943, but the group first assembled at Blythe AAB, California with its 600th, 601st, 602nd and 603rd Bombardment Squadrons. Group Commander was Lt. Col. Frank P Hunter, a West Point graduate from the class of ’33. Following a brief stay at Geiger Field, Washington, the group transferred to Rapid City AAB in South Dakota in June 1943, where intensive training of both air and ground personnel in simulated combat conditions took place.  The men of the 398th were looking forward to deployment with the Eighth Air Force soon.

601st Squadron

602nd Squadron

602nd Squadron

603rd Squadron

But in July 1943, the 398th was re-designated a Replacement Training Unit (RTU) and charged with training other, less experienced units for combat. This was a hard blow for the whole outfit, but they took their duties seriously and by December 1943, had trained 326 separate combat crews. In January 1944, their RTU duties were completed and they once again became an Operational Training Unit (OTU) and accelerated their own preparations for combat deployment. On March 24, orders were issued for the advanced echelons to set up operations at Station 131, Nuthampstead, England. Both air and ground units arrived there on April 22, 1944.

Nuthampstead Airfield

The 398th was the last B-17 unit to join the 8th Air Force, delayed mostly because of their RTU duties during much of 1943. Several groups that came later were all B-24 Liberator units. The 398th was also the only B-17 bomb group in the 8th Air Force not to retain the original new aircraft they had flown from the states. Instead, their stateside planes were replaced with a full compliment of planes already modified for combat. Tails on 398th B-17s were painted with a white “W” on a black triangle against a red field.

398th Tail Insignia, Triangle W

The 398th was then assigned to the 1st Combat Wing of the 1st Air Division, alongside two established bomb groups, the 91st at Bassingborn and the 381st at Ridgewell. These two groups were already battle-hardened veterans. The 91st was one of the early pioneers of the 8th Air Force’s campaign against Germany, and the 381st had been in combat for over ten months. The 398th was in good company and had high standards to live up to.

With long awaited D-Day only a month away, many of the 398th’s early operations were in support of the Allied invasion of France. Later would they would face many deep penetrations into Germany, to cities such as Meresburg, Ludwigshaven, Hamburg, Berlin, Schweinfurt, Kassel, and Munich; missions that would cost them dearly in lives and aircraft. (To see part 2 click here)

Nuthampstead, England

Station 131, Nuthampstead, Hertfordshire, England

Nuthampstead is a small village in the northeast corner of county Hertfordshire, about 40 miles north of London and 20 miles south of Cambridge, near the town of Royston. Station 131 was the nearest 8th Air Force base to London, and the highest above sea level at 460 feet. The 398th Bomb Group would soon discover that the weather at Nuthampstead was often wetter and colder than that at the 91st Bomb Group’s field at Bassingbourn just 12 miles away. They quickly christened their new cold and damp home ‘Mudhampstead’

During the war nearly 500 airfields were constructed in formerly-pastoral East Anglia for both the 8th Air Force and the Royal Air Force. By D-Day there was an average of one airfield every eight miles. Back in September 1942, ten new airfields were allocated for construction by US Army Engineer Battalions. Nuthampstead was one of those ten. The airfield there was begun in late 1942, and was ready for operations by May 1943. It was constructed on farm land known as Scales Park, in the standard pattern of East Anglia airfields with two 4200 foot runways and a main runway that was 6000 feet long, running from northeast to southwest. There were also 54,000 feet of taxiing space and fifty hardstands. Two typical T-2 hangars were situated on the west side of the field near the control tower, technical shops, briefing rooms and offices. Living quarters and communal areas, mainly Nissen huts, were dispersed around the village of Nuthampstead and the Woodman Inn, and also on the west side of the field. Bomb and ammunition dumps were built in an adjoining wooded area on the east side of Scales Park.

The Nissen hut, first designed by Major Peter Nissen of the Royal Engineers in 1916, was made of prefabricated sheets of corrugated metal bolted together into a half-cylinder mounted on a concrete slab and heated by a single small coal stove with a few low-watt light bulbs for illumination. An American innovation on the Nissen hut during the war was constructed with wooden ribs and purlins, and was called the Quonset hut since it was first made at Quonset Point, Rhode Island.

Station 131 required nearly 200,000 square yards of concrete and many tons of other road and runway building material, much of which came from the rubble of bombed English towns and cities. The Nuthampstead base was never 100% completed as the 830th Engineering Battalion was suddenly transferred to another airfield to construct a permanent taxiway there. But to all intents and purposes Station 131 was ready by May 1943. It was initially the home of the 55th Fighter Group whose P-38 Lightings began arriving in September 1943. But by April 1944, the 55th FG had moved on to Wormingford, near Colchester, in Essex, to make room for the incoming 398th Bomb Group.

By 1945 the 8th Air Force had 40 bomb groups with over 2000 planes, B-17’s and B-24’s, organized into three Combat Wings. It also had 20 fighter groups of P-47 Thunderbolts, P-51 Mustangs, and P-38 Lightnings. Some of the bases in East Anglia were RAF structures, but most, like Station 131 at Nuthampstead, were newly-carved into farmland with runways close to minimum length, and with temporary buildings and tents for quarters. The quiet towns and villages of East Anglia were transformed almost overnight into the home of the largest air armada ever assembled, and soon, as Roger Freeman wrote, “The sky was never still.”  To learn about my father's journey to Nuthamstead, read here.