In May 1946 the station was taken over by 60 Group as a satellite of Watton Radio Warfare Establishment, and some Ansons and Lancasters were positioned here. Stirlings from RAF Shepherd's Grove continued to deliver mail and stores overseas until March 1946. RAF Honington has since seen Canberras, the Valiant V-Bomber, Buccaneers and Tornadoes. In March 1946 RAF Transport Command moved in at Honington, and the base would become crucial to the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. This meant that of the 122 bases of the Mighty Eighth, it was the last to be vacated. Honington remained as HQ for the American VIII AF Fighter Command until 26th February 1946. In 1945 307 and 85 Squadrons flew from RAF Castle Camps in Mosquitos but the station now closed down in January 1946. The airfields and military installations in our area naturally began to be wound down. Redgrave Hall had been requisitioned for troops during the war, and following this period, and the massive repairs needed, it was demolished in 1946, like many other large houses of the time. Long term issues replaced the day to day survival of the war, and the economy was totally geared to munitions production and had to be turned around. Rationing continued, families were still separated in many cases, and homes were destroyed. Wartime austerity, however, had not ended. The people had changed and a way of life had disappeared. In the aftermath of war many of our buildings looked different as railing had been removed to be melted down 'for the war effort'. Western Way, the Hurricane, and Black Monday 1987 Please click here if you want to look back to 1945 and earlier in our local history of St Edmundsbury. St Edmundsbury Local History - St Edmundsbury in the late Twentieth Century

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