Qualla: RAF Hardwick

RAF Hardwick: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit British Government, Public domain. Four million seven hundred and fifty thousand bricks. That is what John Laing and Son Limited needed to build RAF Hardwick. Add 4 miles of surface drains, 13 miles of underground drains, 13 miles of internal roadways, 5 miles of sewers, and 7 miles of water mains. Then, on top of all of that, set down three concrete runways, three T-2 hangars on the eastern side, fifty hardstands rather than the thirty originally planned, and a sprawling camp scattered through the surrounding woodland in temporary Nissen huts. RAF Hardwick became Station 104 of the United States Army Air Forces in 1942, and from 7 November 1943 through 12 June 1945 it was the headquarters of the 20th Combat Bombardment Wing of the 2nd Bomb Division. Two of its airmen received Medals of Honor for the same mission. Most of the bricks are gone now.

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Image: British Government | Public domain

RAF Hardwick: First Tenants, Brief Stay

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Megan Allen, CC BY 2.0. The airfield opened in September 1942 and the first Americans to use it were the 310th Bombardment Group (Medium), arriving from Greenville Army Air Base in South Carolina. They flew the North American B-25 Mitchell, the twin-engine medium bomber, and Hardwick was for them only a...

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Image: Megan Allen | CC BY 2.0

RAF Hardwick: Circle B Liberators

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Evelyn Simak, CC BY-SA 2.0. The VIII Bomber Command 93rd Bombardment Group (Heavy) flew its Consolidated B-24 Liberators in from RAF Alconbury in December 1942 and stayed for the rest of the war. Their tail code was a Circle B; their squadrons were the 328th, 329th, 330th, and 409th Bombardment Squadrons. T...

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Image: Evelyn Simak | CC BY-SA 2.0

RAF Hardwick: Ploesti and Two Medals of Honor

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Evelyn Simak, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 1 August 1943, the 93rd was part of Operation Tidal Wave, the low-level attack on the Romanian oil refineries at Ploesti. The mission was famous and disastrous. Lieutenant Colonel Addison E. Baker, the group commander, and Major John L. Jerstad, a former 93rd man who had volun...

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Image: Evelyn Simak | CC BY-SA 2.0

RAF Hardwick: Salerno, Cherbourg, the Bulge

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit National Rail, Public domain. The 93rd's combat record reads like a tour of the war's geography. After Ploesti, detachments returned to the Mediterranean to support the Fifth Army at Salerno during the invasion of Italy in September 1943. The group rejoined for strategic bombing of German marshalling yards, a...

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Image: National Rail | Public domain

RAF Hardwick: Joint STARS Descendant

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tiemestari, CC BY-SA 4.0. The 93rd had an unusual postwar career. Redesignated very heavy in July 1945, converted to B-29 Superfortresses, and assigned to Pratt Army Airfield in Kansas for the planned invasion of Japan, the group instead went to Clovis Army Airfield in New Mexico after V-J Day and was ass...

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Image: Tiemestari | CC BY-SA 4.0