Click photo to view footage from our last Bunking In

The Museum has added a discounted admission rate for all active duty military and their families. 

In July 1942 General James P. Hodges (1894 - 1992) received orders to travel to London and report for duty with General Spaatz's Eighth Air Force.  He was assigned to General Eaker's 8th Bomber Command that was being organized and took command of the 2nd Air Division.   Assigned a car and driver, General Hodges went to Norfolk County accompanied by his staff, an engineering officer, and a Royal Air Force liaison officer.  They set up temporary headquarters in Norwich and then with the assistance of the RAF officer began selecting railheads, bomb and supply dumps, a permanent headquarters, and fifteen airdromes for the 2nd AD groups.   About a month later the first B-24 Groups began to arrive.  By D-Day the 2nd Air Division had approximately fifty thousand officers and men assigned to 14 groups organized into five wings.  In his papers now at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum, General Hodges explained the bombardment formation using this photograph of B-24s.  

The squadron "was the basic bombardment battle formation.  Composed of three flights of from three to six airplanes each, it flew in Vee formation: - the right flight positioned above and the left flight below, the leading flight.  This rather complex arrangement gave a clear field of fire for the machine guns to fire upon attacking fighters.  Note how every airplane in the squadron could fire at the airplane taking this picture.  The Group, with three squadrons disposed as described here for flights, was the basic command entity in flight, and employed this formation enroute to and returning from the target.  On the bombing run, however, squadrons normally went into column formation and airplanes moved closer together so that all bombs, dropped together on signal of the squadron leader, would strike the target in a compact pattern.  The Wing was the next higher command entity.  Its two or three groups flew in column.  Usually each wing had its own assigned targets in the target area but sometimes its targets were in another area entirely.  The Division comprised two or more wings.  In flight the Division was truly an awesome spectacle." 

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Bill Eisenhart, 303^rd Bomb Group, flew a total of 84 missions in his 35 year career as an Air Force pilot, including WW II and Vietnam.  His last "official" mission was flown in Vietnam on April 2, 1973.  After his retirement in 1977 to St. Petersburg, FL, he continued to fly a Piper 180 in which he and his wife, Mary, owned part interest.  But in 1984, Bill finally locked his landing gear in place and settled into a new hobby - golf.  Bill and Mary would continue to enjoy life for another 22 years before Mary, after 61 years of marriage to Bill, would pass away. 

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