As the German stranglehold on Europe intensified, Hitler appeared to be gaining the upper hand and the possibility of Britain being invaded loomed large.

It was than that the first of 350,000 members of the American airforce descended on Cambridge, Norfolk and elsewhere in the east of the country.

American servicemen posted in Britain were were famously viewed by their indigenous counterparts as being “oversexed, over-paid and over here”, but without their efforts, the would almost certainly have concluded differently.

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