Paul has described writing Bomb Group as “penance” for not knowing he lived just nine miles from the former Eighth Air Force base at Ridgewell – the Essex home of the 381st Bomb Group. For a self-confessed aviation geek, it was an awkward discovery. At the heart of the Eighth Air Force were its bombardment groups, each equipped with scores of heavily armed, four-engine bombers. These Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and Consolidated B-24 Liberators were soon punching through the enemy's defences to bomb targets vital to its war effort. They were crewed by thousands of young American airmen, most of whom were volunteers.

We have an in-house historian,” Bingley said, “although we all try to assist in research for those who request it. The stalwart staff for most of the time the museum has been in existence are husband and wife, Alan and Monica Steel. They’re the glue that keeps everything together.” During the course of researching Bomb Group, I discovered that Ridgewell was the temporary home of 90 Squadron – an RAF Short Stirling unit. The interesting thing about 90 Squadron is that it had previously been the first outfit to take the B-17 Flying Fortress over Germany. During the summer of 1941, 20 B-17s were transferred to the British as part of the US Lend-Lease programme. The RAF reactivated a dormant 90 Squadron to operate the bombers. I’m now working on a project to tell the stories of those 20 B-17s and the crews who flew them.If you could give a piece of advice to your younger self, either as a student or when you first started out as a writer, what would it be?

There would be so many – Eric “Winkle” Brown, Winston Churchill, Douglas Bader, to name but a few. If it had to be only one, I would have to say James Good Brown. Not a household name, but one I’ve come to respect and admire. As chaplain of the 381st Bomb Group (and author of The Mighty Men of the 381st: Heroes All) he has become something of a hero of mine. Bomb Group leans heavily on his book, which was largely written as a diary during the Second World War. Evocative, inspiring and touching in equal measure, the character of the man shines through in his words. Many of the people who drive or walk across the airfield have no idea of what went on under their feet,” said Sarah Allen, one of the volunteers at the museum. Paul’s first book, US Air Force Bases in the UK, retraced the concrete paths of 50 of the UK’s past and present American air force bases. The book examines how the so-called “special relationship” has helped shape the land we see today. Probably not advice, more an observation: researching is much easier than writing. Anyone can be a detective, piecing stories together like a jigsaw puzzle, but actually forming it into a coherent narrative is much harder to do. Don’t expect to become rich, either. If I was to calculate my hourly pay for writing my most recent book, there wouldn’t be a calculator capable of recording all the zeros after the first zero and decimal point. Having said that, the reward comes from knowing you’ve told a story that many didn’t know before.His next book, Essex: A Hidden Aviation History, uncovered the many forgotten (and oft-ignored) tales behind the county’s many memorials, museums and markers. From Essex’s links to the origins of the Supermarine company, to the UK’s largest known surviving group of Royal Flying Corps buildings on a former First World War aerodrome; Essex: A Hidden Aviation History is the perfect pointer. The Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum was created in 2000 as a means to protect and preserve the legacy of the men who lived, worked, and flew from Ridgewell. 532nd Bomb Squadron crew members. [Courtesy: Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum] As part of the trip, he walked the parts of the base that had been the athletic fields, the hangars, and looked for the area where his uncle’s billet had been. One of the frequent contributors is Don Madar, an author and historian. Madar has written several books about military history, all of them with a family connection. His interest in the 381st is tied to his uncle Andy Piter Jr., a member of a ground crew at Ridgewell who did not make it home.

When I was there, Paul Bingley and I found where Andy lived, and when I walked by there, I got goosebumps and started to cry,” Madar said. “It hit me. It was his last residence, where he would last have a smile. The other significant thing for me was the morgue, as morbid as that sounds, as that was the last place they were before their bodies were shipped to Cambridge.”Most certainly the First and Second World Wars. Almost every British family had some connection to those two events. Whether it be the social changes that took place, or the hardships that people suffered, some aspect of each war should be on every school curriculum.

In 2021, we were sent an entire collection of uniforms, medals, and personal items from the U.S. by the son of a 381st tailgunner,” he said. “His father survived 30 missions before being transferred to the Pacific, which he also survived. It’s an awesome collection, which includes his secret combat diary, sunglasses, and ‘short snorter.’” The men of RAF Bomber Command were only given their own memorial 10 years ago,” he said. “Winston Churchill didn’t help by failing to mention them in his victory speech, as he had done with ‘The Few.’ Museums like Ridgewell help to tell the story of those bomber boys who answered the call of duty—most of them volunteering, before serving thousands and thousands of miles away from their friends and families,” he said.He befriended some of the 381st’s ground crews and built up a collection of wartime memorabilia, which he exhibited around Essex,” Bingley said. “Finally, he got permission to display his collection in a small section of the current museum building. Sadly, he passed away before seeing the fruit of his labors. The museum continued on, thanks to his friends, including Jim and Jenny Tennet, together with Alan and Monica Steel, and several others.” If you could meet any figure from history, who would it be and why? Also, if you could witness any event throughout history, what would it be? When the war in Europe ended in 1945, the 381st returned to the U.S. Ridgewell Airfield was closed and the land returned to private ownership as a farm. The only parts of the base that remain today are the roads and a Nissen hut that had been the hospital. Actor Edward G. Robinson (second from right) enjoys a cigar in the Ridgewell Officers’ Mess, 1944. [Courtesy: Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum]