Commentary: Rebuilding heritage one project at a time

  • Published
  • By Chief Master Sgt. John Gibson
  • 100th Civil Engineer Squadron Superintendent
RAF MILDENHALL, England - --  The 100th Civil Engineer Squadron Top-4 has been actively involved in a project that is an important part of the rich heritage of the 100th Air Refueling Wing.

As a team, the 100th CES Top-4, a group made up of enlisted leaders being in the ranks of technical sergeant through chief master sergeant, has adopted the 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum in Thorpe Abbots, England.

The 100th BG Memorial Museum is a living piece of 100th ARW history and is in the original airfield control tower at Thorpe Abbots and other surrounding buildings.

The museum was started in 1977, when a group of local citizens came together to restore the control tower. Surrounded by prickly shrubs and accessible only by one piece of the old air field, RAF Thorpe Abbotts had been abandoned for more than 30 years before the local community took charge and turned the tower into the living time machine it is today.

Members from the 100th CES Top-4 volunteer to assist the museum with maintenance and small construction projects around the facilities that are too difficult or too costly for the museum curators to do themselves.

In October 2011, a team of 100th CES volunteers visited the site to undertake significant repairs to the museum's visitor center foundation that had been plagued by frequent flooding. The team removed 30 feet of pre-World War II foundation blocks that had eroded and undermined during the past 30 years.

Additionally, the volunteers reset the sub base using one ton of raw material provided by the museum, allowing the foundation blocks to be reset into their proper position, eliminating future water infiltration.

Top-4 volunteers also removed 40 feet of damaged and missing curbing around the facility and replaced it with fresh new pre-fabricated concrete curb pieces, correcting a three-decade-long drainage issue that had been tormenting the museum. These two efforts alone saved the museum more than $25,000 in labor costs and made a huge difference in the museum appearance and surrounding area.

During a visit to the museum in 2010, utilizing materials funded through the Top-4, volunteers scraped and repainted the 20-foot by 40-foot "Quonset Hut" style building that is currently being used as the museum's visitor center.

This 1940's vintage building is a prefabricated building, with a semi-cylindrical, corrugated roof, was utilized heavily during World War II. The name originates from Quonset Point, R.I., where the huts were first made.

The buildings are a staple of our military heritage, proven by the newest generation of personnel tents in the Air Force inventory, the Alaskan Small Shelter. These new tents are very similar in shape and size to the Quonset Hut used long ago.

The 100th BG Memorial Museum is a moving testament to the British and American forces partnership that came to Thorpe Abbotts in Norfolk to defend freedom during World War II.

The museum is open from March 1 to Oct. 31, weekends and bank holidays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and also open Wednesdays from May to September.

For more information about the museum, e-mail the curators at 100bgmm@tiscali.co.uk or visit their website at www.100bgmus.org.uk/.