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389th Bombardment Group (H)

HISTORIES OF THE ATTACHED GROUND UNITS OF THE 389TH BOMB GROUP (H)

     Eighth Air Force combat operations required enormous logistical backup on the ground. For every Eighth Air Force combat flier, it took 20 ground personnel in a supporting role! Tribute is offered here to those who accomplished 64 of the 68 key operations necessary to carry out a heavy bomber mission, but who are frequently forgotten by press and public – the ground personnel. Their essential work on the ground made possible those headlines in Stars and Stripes, “Liberators of the 8th Air Force attacked German targets today.” Men with wings and men with ground duties collaborated each day with utmost professionalism to get the job done. The ground-pounders' devotion to perfection earned them the daily gratitude and praise of every combat flyer. They deserve to be honored, respected, and remembered just as as the combat men are.
     The painting at left depicts ground personnel "sweatin' 'em in" around the Hethel airfield control tower as they wait hopefully for the safe return from a mission of their aircrews and aircraft. That's their slang to describe waiting under painful, uncomfortable, or anxiety-ridden conditions over which they had no control. All the ground personnel - whether they were airplane mechanics, clerks, policemen, bomb handlers, or cooks - felt the loss of their aircrews and airplanes very personally. It was their boys and their ships up there engaging the enemy in the wild blue. Unless otherwise occupied, most everyone on the base turned out at the time the crews were expected to return to squint at the sky and listen for the droning engines. They knew exactly how many planes had taken off that morning, and they anxiously waited to count them as soon as they came in sight, hoping all had beaten the odds to come home safely.
     The ground grippers were seldom featured in the newsreels and wartime news flashes, and still today, their stories are often overlooked. Most of these men humbly explain that, "it was a just a job" and, unlike the fliers, they believe they have no interesting stories to tell; consequently they rarely volunteer to tell their stories. You have to pin 'em down and draw 'em out. And when you read these histories, you'll see just how fascinating their stories can be.
     The following histories of the ground support units attached to the 389th Bomb Group in England, U.S. Army Air Forces Station 114, are based on periodic and/or monthly reports which each section provided to the designated group historian during the war. Information and photos have been added where available. Click on an active link to vist that section's history page. Some section histories written during the war provide very little information, such as Inspectors, Special Services and Public Relations. Anyone with photos and/or information about the personnel and operations of these sections is invited to submit for publication here. This is a work in progress. Thank you for your patience with the development process.

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