The Americans of the 56th Fighter Group, complete with their P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft deployed in three Fighter Squadrons (numbers 61, 62 and 63), arrived here in England in January 1943.

From April 18, 1944, until September 9, 1945, they were based at Boxted, north of Colchester.

Known as ‘The Wolfpack’, the 56th had a reputation as a rough, tough, successful, uncompromising fighting unit that destroyed more enemy aircraft and had more aces than any other fighter group of the US Eighth Air Force.

They escorted bombers that attacked industrial sites, V-weapon bases, submarine pens and other targets across France, the Low Countries and Germany.

They also played a key role during both the invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, but it all came at a shocking cost – the loss of 182 P-47s, 114 pilots killed, 27 wounded and 34 captured as POWs.

Being so close to the Boxted flying envelope, the air space over Maldon and the Dengie hinterlands was witness to their activities and at least three of their P-47s came to grief in our district.

Maldon and Burnham Standard:

  • The badge of the 56th Fighter Group, who were based in Boxted

The first occurred at 18.03hrs on Saturday June 10, 1944 (D-Day Plus 4).

Returning from an operational mission, P47D 42-75053 (HV-L) of the 61st Fighter Squadron, piloted by Philadelphian Lieutenant James J Clark, was clearly in trouble.

It had, in fact, run out of fuel and so Lt Clark decided on a belly landing.

He put his aircraft down at a location variously described as "three quarters of a mile north-east of Burnham, at Deal Hall Farm” and “one mile south-east of Middlewick Farm”.

Lt Clark was injured, but thankfully not seriously.

He left Boxted two months later and ended his tour of duty on September 19, 1944, eventually earning the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal and the Victory Medal.

The next incident involving the 56th took place on Monday, September 18, 1944, at 17.30hrs.

Second-Lieutenant Elwood Raymond, of New Jersey and serving with the 63rdFS, was limping his P47D home with a badly flak-damaged tail.

He had been supporting B24 Liberators dropping supplies to paratroopers at Arnhem when he was hit.

The aircraft, 42-26057 (UN-W) finally “gave up the ghost” over Burnham and crashed half a mile from the sea wall at Court Farm on the Southminster Marshes, where it promptly sank into the mud, with Second-Lieutenant Raymond still in the cockpit.

A recovery team from RAF Bradwell Bay investigated and reported that the aircraft was “eight feet down” and that “nothing could be done”.

Elwood Raymond is still officially listed as “Missing; crashed in the North Sea”.

He was posthumously awarded the American Campaign Medal, Victory Medal and Purple Heart.

The third and final crash was on Sunday February 4, 1945, at 14.45hrs.

Lieutenant Kenneth L Smith, of Ohio, was up with others from the 62FS on a training flight.

According to some of the eyewitnesses (who, many years later, I interviewed), P47D, 42-28878 (LM-?), was “doing dives and loops” before it stalled and went into a “power dive at an 80 per cent angle”.

Kenneth Smith bailed out, but his parachute failed to open and he was killed.

His aircraft ended up half a mile distant, hitting the ground and exploding “two fields from the roadside at Manifold Wick/Spital Farm, Tolleshunt D’Arcy”, causing a large crater.

During the 1970s Second-Lieutenant Raymond’s crash site was visited by a number of aviation archaeology groups and some fragments were recovered, but the bulk of the wreckage was apparently blown up by the Navy in 1975.

Today, Elwood Raymond’s name is among those listed on the tablets to the missing at Cambridge American Cemetery, Madingley.

The site of Lieutenant Smith’s P-47 was also investigated by aviation archaeologists in the late-1970s and again in the early-80s.

Maldon and Burnham Standard:

  • Fragments of Raymond Elwood’s P47

He was initially buried in Cambridge, but his body was repatriated to the New Forest Hill Cemetery, in Piqua, Ohio.

Following post-war use as a jet aircraft testing site by the RAF, Boxted aerodrome was finally closed in 1947.

However, there is a museum there, opened in 2011 with the aim of educating, promoting and preserving the history of the airfield.

So in view of those Maldon links I made a pilgrimage. Amongst the artefacts on display, I saw plenty of evidence of the 56th tenure.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a few pieces of twisted aluminium.

The label revealed them to be pieces of Elwood Raymond’s P47 – one of three Thunderbolts that took off from this place, never to return.