Remembering the Base at Bodney

Clark Gable at the camp

It was 1943; Joanna Crowley was just 17 and looking for a job. She was told to report to the base at Bodney, in the heart of Norfolk in the UK and have a medical check. The American doctor decided: “You’re not cross-eyed, bow-legged or knock-kneed. You’ll do!”

In June and August of that year, around 1,500 airmen forming the three squadrons of the 352nd Fighter Group had sailed over from America and were training hard. Joanna was set to work in the office and was given charge of the key of the bomb-store.

She recalled: “Yet matters were so secret that I was never allowed to know where the store was!”

Before the first combat mission, the film-star, Clark Gable, visited the camp. He had become a Gunnery Officer for a Bomb Group and was sent to the UK to film the pilots in formation for a movie called “Combat America.” The girls in the office egged Joanna on to ask for his autograph, so she asked permission from the Station HQ, and ventured up to him.

“I do not give autographs when on duty in uniform!” was his tart reply.

“So that was me told off,” she laughed.

Bob “Punchy” Powell

On another occasion, the Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, came to Bodney to view the Mustang which had been named after her. Every plane had a name, some those of the pilots’ wives and some painted with emblems of Blighty girls with little or nothing on, one called “The Flying Bathtub.” Before the arrival of the Princess, the commanding officer spotted one such saucily-named plane parked near to hers and ordered: “Get that thing off the airfield!”

The Princess Elizabeth still exists, and in spring 2007 it was transported to the States, had a refit and was flying again at a reunion.

Joanna’s enduring memory was D-Day, June 6th, 1944. The previous day she received a call from Captain Charles Hunt, commanding officer in charge of the ground staff, to come to his office to say “Goodbye.”

“I don’t think I shall be here in the morning,” he confided, and this was all she knew.

An order came from High Command that no-one should leave the camp that night

The Princess Elizabeth

That day the squadrons had been ordered to paint its bluenosed Thunderbolts and Mustangs with black and white ID stripes. At 2.30 in the morning, under a sky covered in clouds and with drops of rain beginning to fall, the pilots lined up for take-off to Belgium. Out they went. All at once a tremendous explosion filled the airfield. A young pilot of 21, Robert Frascotti, had flown his Mustang called “Umbragio” into the new control tower under construction and was killed outright. He was on his 89th mission, and the tower at Bodney still stands to this day in silent memory to him.

However, the mission was accomplished with such a high rate of successes that the Germans named them “The Bluenosed Bastards of Bodney.” Upon their return from Belgium Captain Hunt was promoted to Major and Joanna was invited to his office to join in the celebrations.

By the end of the war the 352nd Fighter Group was officially credited with the destruction of 791 enemy aircraft and ranked second to none in the 8th Air Force. They had possessed 28 ace pilots, their greatest being Major George Preddy from North Carolina with 27 aerial victories.

The U.S. Bodney Veterans

The Group is still remembered today. In April, 2003 Lieutenant Bob “Punchy” Powell, once a handsome young lieutenant whose plane was called “The West by Gawd Virginian” led a party over to Bodney for a nostalgic reunion They received a great welcome, and, to their surprise, there came a sudden deep rumble of a Thunderbolt and the whine of a Mustang soaring overhead in their honour. A memorial to the group has been erected at Bodney.

Sadly Joanna Crowley died last year. But even in the last days of her life she would recite the poem that Major Hunt composed especially for her in her autograph book:

To a good girl and a kind friend,

They sent me first to Alaska to build a close road to Juneau;

Then to the South Sea Islands to build a place for planes to land;

Then to Merrie Olde England across the ocean blue.

It’s England I’ll remember, for that’s where I met you.  ­

*If you have any links with East Anglia in the UK, wartime memories, or indeed any comments, please email c/o Senior Magazine at seniormag@sbcglobal.net. Read Let’s Talk online at  www.lets talk24.co.uk.