Soldier in Britain 1955 US Army; The Big Picture TV-281 (Patreon)

more at http://quickfound.net/

'Today--for the first time in history--American military personnel are stationed on the soil of Great Britain in peacetime. Filmed against a backdrop of rolling countryside, villages, and historic landmarks, "Soldier in Britain" tells the story of Americans and Britains learning to live and work together. The American soldier's primary duty in Great Britain is to protect the numerous air bases of the Strategic Air Command. Quonset huts dot the landscape from one end of England to the other, and Englishmen going about their daily tasks may at any time hear an alert, and see troops from a friendly nation hastening off to an airbase to blaze away at a target. As the film unfolds, the television viewer will accompany the American soldiers stationed in Britain as they get to know Trafalgar Square (center of the City of London) as they watch a game of Rugby at Oxford, and visit historic Westminster Abbey. These are only a few of many sights covered by THE BIG PICTURE camera crews for "Soldier in Britain."'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Fairford

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Royal Air Force Fairford or more simply RAF Fairford (IATA: FFD, ICAO: EGVA) is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Gloucestershire, England which is currently a standby airfield and therefore not in everyday use. Its most prominent use in recent years has been as an airfield for United States Air Force B-52s during the 2003 Iraq War, Operation Allied Force in 1999, and the first Gulf War in 1991. It is the US Air Force's only European airfield for heavy bombers.

RAF Fairford was the only TransOceanic Abort Landing site for NASA's Space Shuttle in the UK. As well as having a sufficiently long runway for a shuttle landing (the runway is 3,046 m (9,993 ft) long), it also had NASA-trained fire and medical crews stationed on the airfield. The runway is rated with an unrestricted load-bearing capacity, meaning that it can support any aircraft with any type of load.

RAF Fairford is also the home of the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT), an annual air display. RIAT is one of the largest airshows in the world, with the 2003 show recognised by Guinness World Records as the largest military airshow ever, with an attendance of 535 aircraft...

RAF Fairford was constructed in 1944 to serve as an airfield for British and American troop carriers and gliders for the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II. The RAF used it to lift British troops for Operation Market Garden during World War II.

In the early years of the Cold War the British and American governments reached an agreement under which elements of the USAF Strategic Air Command (SAC) would be based in the UK. Bases had already been established in East Anglia, at RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath, but they were considered to be vulnerable to bomber attack and airfields further behind the RAF fighter defences were sought. Four RAF airfields were selected to receive SAC units: RAF Brize Norton, RAF Fairford, RAF Greenham Common and RAF Upper Heyford. In 1948 the Americans occupied RAF stations including Fairford, Brize Norton, Burtonwood, Greenham Common, Mildenhall, Lakenheath and Woodbridge to build up a deterrent in Europe against the Soviets.

RAF Lyneham's position as the primary tactical transport base for the RAF was emphasised in February 1971 when Nos. 30 and 47 Squadrons were transferred from their old base at RAF Fairford. In 1965, RAF Fairford was the first home base of the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team The Red Arrows.

U.S. Air Force

In 1950, as a result of the beginning of the Cold War, the airfield was transferred to the United States Air Force for strategic bomber operations. A 10,000-foot (3,000 m) runway was constructed for long-range bomber operations.

The runway was completed in 1953, and served as a forward airbase for the first Convair B-36 Peacemaker aircraft from Carswell Air Force Base, Texas. The airfield later received B-47s which were maintained at a heightened state of alert because of increased tensions with the Soviet Union.

Due to the long runway Fairford was chosen in 1969 as the British test centre for the Concorde aircraft until 1977...