64th Anniversary of the Kassel Mission - Ceremony

[Biggles1049]

FLAG PRESENTATION :
27th SEPTEMBER 2008, 1300 HRS.

On the 27th September there will be a ceremony at Tibenham, when the United States Air Force, Mildenhall, and Royal Air Force, Marham, will present a new flag to the Norfolk Gliding Club Tibenham Norfolk. There will be an Honour Guard from Mildenhall, and, it is hoped, the participation of an Air Cadet band.

The date is extremely significant, being the 64th anniversary of the ill fated ‘Kassel Mission’, when twenty nine-aircraft of the 445th Bomb Group were lost during a three-minute battle. Thirty-five Liberators took off from Tibenham to Kassel in Germany. Four returned. 118 aircrew died and 122 ended the war as prisoners. This was the worst single loss to any airbase in US Air Force history.

Below is an image of the current memorial

[Second Air Force]

Thank you for posting the information and photo Biggles1049. We lost a good friend, Wayne Allen, in the last year. Wayne was an ordnance officer with the 445th. He remembered with great sadness waiting for the return of men he trained and worked with, to no avail. He once told me how lonely the remaining personnel of the 445th felt after the Kassel mission, how quickly replacement crews and aircraft arrived, and the way everyone worked hard to get the 445th back on it's feet again.

Scott

Very interesting and very sad. There's a great website dedicated to this mission that is good reading ....

http://kasselmission.com/

I hope a few here on WIX take some time to read into this mission. If you have an interest in WWII history, you'll find this mission very interesting. It really explains a lot about the sacrifices these great fellows went through.

[JimH]

Tibenham...earlier this year...




jim

[Second Air Force]

I appreciate the photos of Tibenham, Jim, and they lead me into a funny story that Wayne Allen told me a few years ago. He and another officer were assigned to oversee the guard detachment one extremely dark, foggy night. They were making their way around the perimeter track of the field and Wayne heard a 'thud' and his buddy started cussing. He had walked into the west end of an east-facing horse and didn't know it was there until he hit it.

If I ever get permission from his family, I'll try to post some of the hundreds of photos that Wayne took at Tibenham during his tour of duty. He took many, many photos of the men, airplanes, and surroundings of the 445th.

[JimH]

Thats a great story. There isn't much left there but at least it is still an active airport. I can assure you the local pub still remembers the 445th!!! We spent a good part of the day roaming around Tibenham...very cool place to visit.

jim

[Second Air Force]

Jim, Wayne told us of going to that pub for adult beverages and walking home late at night. He confirmed a story I'd read about navigating in the fog at night. It was so dark that they would walk with one foot on the road and one in the grass and they memorized the route so that they would turn off at the correct side road. He said after doing this a couple of times in the daylight to work out the number of turnoffs it worked quite well.

Now that I think of it, the three things that Wayne talked about the most was the extreme darkness at night, the great people he met in England, and the lonely feeling at Tibenham after the Kassel mission.

Scott