B47s Fly ‘A-Missions’ From Fairford Base
 

B47s Fly ‘A-Missions’ From Fairford Base

08-16-2010 05:19 AM

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Mon, 2010-08-16 13:18


B47s Fly ‘A-Missions’ From Fairford Base


B47s Fly ‘A-Missions’ From Fairford Base

Fairford, England
April 19, 1954

The only B47 atomic jet-bomber striking force currently operating in Europe is stationed here in the midst of southern England’s Cotswold country, with its gently rolling pastures and its quaint villages where the walls and even the roofs of houses are made of stone.
The B47s, of the Strategic Air Comd’s 303d Bomb Wing, are flying on day-and-night training missions from this former Royal Air Force glider-training base, now manned by U.S. Air Force’s 3919th Air Base Gp under the command for the past three years of Colonel Jerome Tarter.
By an unusual arrangement, the 303d wing’s planes operate from Fairford, while the wing’s administrative offices are situated at another American air base nearby – Greenham Common.
Fairford, like other U.S. bases in England, still is called an RAF station and flies the American and British flags side by side from a flagpole that looks somewhat like the mast of a ship. Only RAF unit on the base, however, is a liaison mission.
Fairford was the first base in England to host a wing of the mammoth B36 intercontinental bombers – in 1952- for an extended training period, and the first to receive an all-jet wing of B47s. The present B47 wing is Fairford’s second.
Tarter will relinquish command of the 3919th this week to return to a Stateside command. He will be succeeded here by Lt. Col. Kenneth D. Thompson, Fairford deputy commander since January 1953.
During the early part of Tarter’s command, Fairford was a 3d AF unit under USAFE and in October 1952, was reassigned to SAC’s 7th Air Div, becoming operational shortly thereafter.
A veteran of some 300 combat flying hours in the Southwest Pacific during World War II, where he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with various unit citations, Tarter came to England in June 1951, after completing the Armed Forces Staff College course at Norfolk, Va.
After a leave in the U.S., he will become base commander at Limestone, Me., an 8th AF installation of SAC.

Source: Stars and Stripes Archives




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