This is Essex --DOMINATED by Ryanair and easyJet, its huge glass terminal and 17.5 million passengers a year, Stansted Airport has long been seen as the place for cheap travel to Europe. But while it is the first stop for sun-seeking holidaymakers , 70 years ago it was a very different place.
In 1943 with Britain in the grip of war, thousands of US Air Force planes were flying in our skies and George Washington Field – as Stansted Airport was then known – was in the process of being constructed.
With no terminal building and only tents in sight, the airfield's main runway, 6,000 feet by 150 feet and two smaller subsidiary runways, were built by the US Army Engineers, eventually making the north Essex airport the ninth biggest American air base in East Anglia at 3,000 acres.
Home to the US Air Force's 344th Bomb Group with 64 Martin Marauder B-26 bombers, some 266 missions were flown to France and the Low Countries, dropping around 7,000 tonnes of bombs on their targets – and the group led 600 aircraft of the US Air Force into action on D-Day.
It was also a maintenance base for aircraft and following the end of the European war, became a rest and rehabilitation centre for American troops.
Last Friday, the 70th anniversary of the completion of the runway was celebrated with a fly-past from a Second World War P-47 Thunderbolt and a visit from one of the group's former members, Major Edward W. Horn, who helped plant a commemorative tree and unveiled a memorial to the airmen stationed at Stansted.
The 88-year-old Major, who became a German prisoner of war after he was shot down in 1944, said: "Seventy years ago, I was flying my B-26 Marauder off this runway, and now I stand here today in remembrance of my fellow 344th Bomb Group airmen and in honour of those who did not return from their missions."
The airport's managing director Andrew Harrison, said: "To be able to welcome Major Edward Horn back to the airport for the first time in years is a particularly poignant and humbling moment.
"We should be proud that our airport played a pivotal role in the Allied victory. We owe them all an immense debt of gratitude.
"Stansted is very proud of its past and the critical role the airfield played during World War II as a US Air Force base.
"It's amazing to now look back and acknowledge those early efforts which have ultimately culminated in the Stansted Airport we see today."
Stansted's runway was lengthened to 10,000 feet in 1957 by the US Army Engineers.
This runway still remains today – albeit reinforced – making it the third longest at a UK public airport, behind Heathrow and Gatwick.
On Monday the tarmac accommodated a British Airways Airbus A380 (above), the world's biggest passenger airliner.
It touched down for the first time as part of the airline's flight training programme before it enters long-haul service later this year – an elderly runway enabling a young and daring flying machine to do its magic. Reported by This is 6 hours ago.