Rougham Control Tower Aviation Museum is a small, friendly, volunteer-run museum, dedicated to keeping the memories and history alive of the American airmen/women who served in the 94th Bomb Group of the USAAF 8th Air Force during World War II.
Rougham Control Tower, originally known as RAF Bury St Edmunds, is a former RAF station, situated 3 miles east of the Suffolk market town of Bury St Edmunds.
The airfield was built between 1941 and 1942 and had three intersecting concrete runways. The main runway was approximately 2000 yards long and run in an East to West direction.
It was designed for a United States Army Airforce unit (USAAF) bomb group. Fifty concrete hardstands were constructed just off the encircling perimeter track. Two T2-type hangars were erected, one on each side of the airfield. Accommodation was provided for some 3,000 personnel in Nissen and other temporary type buildings.
The 94th flew the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress as part of the Eighth Air Force’s strategic bombing campaign and served chiefly as a strategic bombardment organization throughout the war.
They flew their first mission on the 13th of June 1943, bombing an airfield at Saint Omer. After that, the group attacked such strategic objectives as the port of St Nazaire, shipyards at Kiel, an aircraft component parts factory at Kassel, a synthetic rubber plant at Hanover, a chemical factory at Ludwigshafen, marshalling yards at Frankfurt, oil facilities at Mersburg, and ball-bearing works at Eberhausen.
