WW2 Air Force Gunnery School Remains. Snettisham Norfolk.

#WW2 #Norfolk #MilitaryHistory

During the early years of World War two, a RAF gunnery range was established at Snettisham, in 1943 this became the 8th Air Force Provisional Gunnery School under the American Army Air Force, for training B-17 air gunners. Some reports also suggested that there was an Air Gunners School moving target rail, formed from a concrete base with an iron track.

In 1943, Staff Sergeant James C RHODES was posted to the 545th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), USAAF, in England, as a Ball Turret Gunner in a B17 Flying Fortress bomber. On 30th May 1943 he was told to report to the 8AF Provisional Gunnery School at Snettisham, Norfolk. He would be training, for about 10 days, with 50 calibre Browning machines guns of the type fitted in the ball turret to defend the bombers from attacking fighters.

The instructions given to him were that he should take with him to the training camp, .50 calibre ammunition, gas mask, steel helmet, mess equipment, blankets, clothing for ten days and ‘PX rations’ for the period of his training.

Sgt RHODES, with other trainees, lived in canvas tents on Diglea holiday camp site. The USAAF officers, like the RAF officers previously, lived in requisitioned bungalows and chalets on the sea bank with the quarry behind them.

The Browning machine guns were generally fixed to concrete blocks and trainees fired at targets drawn a cross the beach by cable.

While there the USAAF constructed a concrete road that ran from Snettisham to Dersingham. This roadway was destroyed in the floods of 1953 and some of concrete blocks can be still be seen in the RSPB reserve's lagoons.

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