Events Diary

All meetings held at Friars Hall, School Street, Sudbury, unless otherwise stated.
All events are £2 for members and £3 for non members unless otherwise stated.

Forthcoming Events 2010

Sunday 22nd August 12.30 for 1pmSummer Luncheon
All Saints Church Hall - £2
Followed by coffee at Cygnets, Church Street by kind invitation of Marion Hopps

Friday 24th September  7.30pm
‘History of Lavenham’
A talk by Monica Place

Friday 29th October 7.30pm
‘Living with No Glorious Dead’
A talk by Val Herbert

Friday 26th November 7.30pm
Film ‘A look back at Sudbury’
Scenes of the town from 1927 to 1998 from East Anglian film archive

Thursday 2nd December
7 for 7.30pm at Masonic Hall, Sudbury
Christmas Dinner
Traditional two-course meal with all the trimmings - £14.95

2011

Past Events & Reviews 2010

Saturday 10th July 10.30am - 12.00 noon
Coffee and Cake at Mill House
By kind invitation of Maria and Peter Mills. Join us for coffee, cake and home made scones. If the weather is kind, we may be able to enjoy a glass of wine on the lawn.
There will also be a raffle.Entrance £2.50 members & £3.50 non-members 

Friday 26th March 7.30pm
“East Anglia the American Invasion”
A talk by Ivor Warne
(Imperial War Museum)
Followed by the AGM

The Friendly Invasion: Americans in East Anglia

It was standing room only for March’s talk (which preceded the AGM) about the ‘friendly invasion’: the Americans in East Anglia during the Second World War, given by Ivor Warne of the Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
The Americans entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 but it was not until 1943 that construction began on the airfield close to Great Waldingfield near Sudbury. Handed over to the Americans in March 1944 it became home for 3,000 Americans of the 486th Bomb Group – and what a huge impact they made: Sudbury itself had a population of only 7,000, and Great Waldingfield, just 250!

The crew of B-17 041 ‘Easy Movement’

Accidents and survival
From this airfield flew bombers: B24 Liberators and B17 Flying Fortresses – you can see one of the latter, the Sally B (which played ‘Memphis Belle’ in the film of that title) at the IWM, Duxford. With all these airfields – one every eight miles between Duxford and the coast – accidents, sometimes fatal, were not uncommon.
American aircrews had a one-in-three chance of survival for they flew 25 missions (later extended to 35 to make up for the losses, primarily from German anti-aircraft guns) before they could go home. Ground crew remained for the duration. Increasingly, they distanced themselves from aircrews – it was the only way to cope with the constant threat of the deaths of their flying colleagues.
The Americans quickly discovered that precision bombing from 35,000 feet may have been feasible in sunny Arizona but not in cloud-covered Europe and precision bombing quickly gave way to carpet bombing.


Group of ball gunners inspects the cramped (and highly exposed) belly turret of B-17

Gunners and fighters
Ivor showed slides of various parts of a B24 Liberator. One was the ball turret in which a gunner (maximum height 5 feet 2 inches) crouched for six or seven hours – hanging under the aircraft in a ‘glass’ bubble. Gunners were the eyes of the aircraft and had to watch for enemy planes. Benzedrine helped keep them awake.
Life was not comfortable for the rest of the crew: outside temperature could be -20F with a 200mph wind chill factor. A leather flying jacket, ear mufflers, helmet with earflaps and liners, and electrically heated underwear which plugged into the ‘mains’ helped, but if a wire broke, the heating elements did not work and the wearer was cold – very. Over all that was parachute harness and over the top of that a flak jacket weighing about 28 pounds.
Another of Ivor’s slides showed the bomb bay. Sometimes a bomb would get stuck. This entailed one of the crew inching along a narrow walkway open to the elements to try and release it.
Fighters protected the bombers en route to the target. The original Thunderbolts were replaced by Mustangs with Rolls Royce engines making them faster than Spitfires. With drop tanks carrying extra fuel they could fly to Berlin and back.
At first, aircraft were painted but this was discontinued which reduced weight and saved money, fuel and time. And time was of the essence: one US factory boasted that a B24 came off the production line every 23 minutes!
Less praiseworthy was that the influential industrialist Henry Ford refused to employ blacks, Jews or women and used the National Guard to break strikes. However, when his white male workforce was drafted he had no option but to employ, amongst others, women.


These non-flying personnel were given a ‘victory flight’ over Europe on May 25 1945, to see the damage that their bombers had created.

Jiving, film stars and weddings
The USAAF tried to make East Anglia a home from home with baseball games and even rodeos. The American Red Cross organised social events and dances: jiving to the rhythm of a Big Bands was exciting and glamorous! Many a local girl was swept off her feet by an American airman in his smart uniform, with lots of money and tales of his home. The only notions most people had of America and Americans were through Hollywood film stars. Some 80,000 women (not all from East Anglia) married American servicemen and went to the USA: some quickly returned home.
But this was war and men were often moved at short notice. One of Ivor’s slides showed the remains of a camp with a hastily scribbled notice reading: “Sorry, Jean, had to go. Johnny”. Did they ever meet again?

Joyce Crosby of Church Road, Great Cornard met Cliff Knight at the County Cinema, married in her local church and went out to a new life in the States when the war ended.

Lifetime thrill
The Americans loved children: they invited them onto the airfields, offered them sweets and chocolate, organised parties – and asked if they had any older sisters! Perhaps the best experience for two local lads was when a bomber crashed into fields and they excitedly ran towards it. Then someone asked them: “Would you like to fire the guns?” It was a never-to-be-forgotten thrill!
A less attractive aspect of the American ‘invasion’ was that a ‘colour bar’ existed in the USAAF which sometimes led to violence (even murder) and this attitude did not go down well in Britain. In an attempt to reduce friction, blacks and whites were given leave on different days.
The ‘friendly invasion’ lasted barely eighteen months but its legacy continues to this day and has become part of the history of East Anglia – certainly in Sudbury – and, as David Burnett said in his vote of thanks, we must never underestimate the sacrifice of these young Americans, 200 of them flying from Sudbury never came back.
Don’t forget to visit the Heritage Centre and Museum in Gaol Lane to see the tribute in words and pictures to their memory. Have a look too at the website www.sudburysuffolk.co.uk/americans

Saturday 24th April 7.30pm
“Bicentenary of the Peninsular War - an overview”
A talk by Nick Hallidie

HISTORY MADE A BIT MORE ACCESSIBLE!

Perhaps fittingly on St. George’s Day, our chairman, Nick Hallidie gave the Society an illuminating talk on the Peninsular War or rather wars which ran from 1808 to 1814.
We were told about the origins of the war, mainly Napoleon’s desire to capture Lisbon, however, the nearest he got to achieving  this was in 1810. The years before and after were taken up with a succession of more or less successful campaigns under a variety of commanders; good and poor. Nick pointed out that army commanders bought their commissions while the Navy had a rigourous training system which produced many talented officers. The one thing an Army officer was expected to do was be unflinching in the face of the enemy and at the head of his men. Not all achieved this standard!

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of  Wellington, distinguished himself both as a tactician and general commander and eventually after many vicisitudes won the day and defeated Napoleon.
Nick described the many battles that were fought, sieges raised and forced marches made under appalling conditions. One was left at the end wondering how anyone survived let alone got home to tell the tale. These situations applied almost as much to the British and their allies as to the French. For instance, after a humiliating retreat to La Coruna the British Army, starving and ill clothed and equipped had to be rescued by the Navy. We also had described the different methods of fighting formations adopted by the different armies – the French fought in square columns which hampered their fire power while the British fought in ‘thin red lines’ which enabled them to fight on a broader front and also to release greater fire power from the artillery.

The Peninsular war ended in 1814 with Napoleon’s defeat and imprisonment on Elba but a year later he was back only to lose again to the Iron Duke at Waterloo in 1815.
Nick, with his military background, interspersed his talk with  some interesting insights into the workings of the Army as well. Most entertaining. He took questions from the floor before everyone had coffee and biscuits before going home.

13th June 2010
“Tea And Cakes at Croft House”
On a (mostly) sunny Sunday afternoon, 13 June, forty or so members of the Sudbury Society gathered for a pleasant couple of hours in the delightful setting of the garden of Croft House???, home of Sudbury Society president, Lord Phillips and his wife, Penny, to enjoy their hospitality with tea, strawberries, scones and cakes.

It was a pity there were not more members present but no doubt some preferred to watch the World Cup on television even though, so I was told, England was not playing that afternoon. However, the football-free zone of the riverside garden had plenty to admire: an ancient apple tree (kept upright by an equally ancient wooden prop) but the apple tree was dwarfed by a massive weeping willow. A ramshackle boathouse in the corner and an old wooden chair, going green with age were subjects that begged to be painted or photographed.

An unusual sculpture in the middle of the lawn was an animal constructed of metal plates. There was some discussion as to whether it was an armadillo or an anteater! (I’d plump for the former!)

It was a perfect setting for ‘circulating’ and catching p on chat. Conversation ranged from playing golf on the championship course at St Andrews to a mobile phone which was also a pedometer (the daily goal being 10,000 steps to keep you fit), to Sainsburys’ proposals to open a supermarket in Sudbury, to the identity of an aircraft flying overhead (a Hurricane from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight) and even a bit of ‘shop talk: the latest decision of the date and times of Sudbury Society committee meetings.

We were all most grateful to Andrew and Penny Phillips for inviting us to enjoy their garden and to Diana, Maria, Heather and the other ladies who served a lovely summer-time afternoon tea.

Previous Events

For previous events reviews please view our newsletters.

Sudbury's former Refuse and Sewage works in Ballingdon Street