Bomb Group: The Eighth Air Force's 381st and the Allied Air Offensive over Europe

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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.

In 2017, we were named ‘runners-up’ in the 2017 Museums + Heritage Awards’ ‘Project on a Limited Budget’ category,” Bingley said. “This has led to more individuals donating and loaning items for display. We are particularly keen on personal items, as the ethos of the museum is to tell their stories. We can see just how deeply these stories resonate with visitors.”

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Bingley was surprised. At the time, he was living just a few miles from Ridgewell, “Yet I knew nothing of the base or the 381st. It was the start of a long journey of discovery. The more I discovered, the more I wanted to know,” he said. 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. 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?

The Essex Gliding Club continues to use Ridgewell during the summer months, and has even painted one of its gliders in the markings of the 381st. It has also given pleasure flights over the base to veterans and their relatives,” he said.My uncle was one of 31 men killed just 15 days before the end of the war in an airplane crash on the Isle of Man. They were heading to Northern Ireland for a week’s leave.” Deadliest Crash on the Isle of Man