Old Buckenham or Tibenham - Jimmy Stewart

That image too is on Fold3 but does not include the location. The caption reads:



Courtesy Fold3

I know the area around Ketteringham Hall quite well and am wondering if the rooftops in the background of the picture might not actually be the hall. A cluster of Admin buildings (Operations, A2 Admin & Duty and the Adjutant Section) were located adjacent to it in the north. The Admin site 1 was located a short distance further to the north-west but not sure if the hall could be seen from there in the 1940s.

PETERTHEEATER wrote:

That image too is on Fold3 but does not include the location. The caption reads:

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

Courtesy Fold3

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

A few pictures from this excellent book. First published in 1996, ISBN 1 85983 066 8. If you can find a copy it's well worth buying, full of interesting photographs, a complete pictorial history. Many years ago, (At least 10) I wrote to the EDP asking if they were considering publishing a similar edition about the Americans in Suffolk during World War Two. They wrote back informing me that if and when they did they would let me know. So far haven't heard a thing...

I have found a cropped version of the picture Rich posted. It is published in a book titled "Jimmy Stewart - Bomber Pilot", written by Starr Smith - published in 2005 by Zenith Press, ISBN-13: 978-0-7603-2824-8.

The text referring to the photo says: "Captain Jimmy Stewart at Tibenham, shortly after his arrival in England, 1943". Mystery solved.

Edited to remove said picture to comply with copyright policy. It can be seen in the book referred to above, in the block of photographs following page 145.

Has the author given a source refererence for that photograph?

PETERTHEEATER wrote:

Has the author given a source refererence for that photograph?

Although some of the photographs contained in the book are credited to a photographer, the majority of them are not. Starr Smith mentions the Air Force Historical Research Agency of the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, as one of his sources and also mentions the Air University Library's and the Jimmy Stewart Museum's assistance, and many others, but there is no reference anywhere in the book crediting individual photographers.

Thanks Evelyn. The reason that I asked is that primary source material is not always accurate. I have found in Fold3, for example errors in captions stating a specific location when it is elsewhere. The USAAF - and indeed the US Army, in Europe were unfamiliar with British place-names and spelling errors are common as are the joining of a two word place-name into one word or the splitting of one word place-names into two! . Place-names passed verbally (telephone etc) could be misheard and misspelled. One good example is a caption stating a vertical air photograph is an 'airfield' whereas it was a bombing range.

Of course, there was no intention to deceive just human failure.

But, we have to start somewhere and primary sources are quoted as being accurate.

PETERTHEEATER wrote:

...But, we have to start somewhere and primary sources are quoted as being accurate.

Fully agree with you, Peter. For all we know, the picture's caption may not be correct.

Petertheeater

Not sure if his facial expression is smugness or condescension , after all he was an actor.

May be just pleased and proud to be awarded another medal - He was a prewar civvy pilot and Jimmie Stewart worked hard to be allowed to fly with the USAAF (he was 32 when drafted) and then even harder again to be allowed to fly operationally,but he eventually made it and even continued to fly ops unofficially after promotion to colonel (he had been grounded by the Brass).
Postwar he refused to glorify war and would not act in war films - he always seemed to me to be an ok sort of guy - he was a very popular unit commander.

But he did portray Glenn Miller in that superb story about the famous Band leader.