Planes Used At Rougham

The Douglas A-20 Havoc (company designation DB-7) was an American attack, light bomber, and intruder aircraft of World War II.  It served with several Allied air forces, principally the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), the Soviet Air Forces (VVS), Soviet Naval Aviation (AVMF), and the Royal Air Force (RAF) of the United Kingdom. Soviet units received more than one in three (2,908 aircraft) of the DB-7s ultimately built.  It was also used by the air forces of Australia, South Africa, France, and the Netherlands during the war, and by Brazil afterwards.

In British Commonwealth air forces, bomber/attack variants of the DB-7 were usually known by the service name Boston, while night fighter and intruder variants were usually known as Havoc. An exception to this was the Royal Australian Air Force, which referred to all variants of the DB-7 by the name Boston. 

The USAAF referred to night fighter variants as P-70.

The Martin B-26 Marauder was a World War II twin-engined medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company from 1941 to 1945.  First used in the Pacific Theatre in early 1942, it was also used in the Mediterranean Theater and in Western Europe.

After entering service with the US Army, the aircraft received the reputation of a "Widowmaker" due to the early models' high accident rate during takeoffs and landings. The Marauder had to be flown at exact airspeeds, particularly on final runway approach and when one engine was out.  The 150 mph (241 km/h) speed on short final runway approach was intimidating to pilots who were used to much slower speeds, and whenever they slowed down to speeds below what the manual stated, the aircraft would stall and crash.

The B-26 became a safer aircraft once crews were re-trained, and after aerodynamics modifications (an increase of wingspan and wing angle-of-incidence to give better takeoff performance, and a larger vertical stabilizer and rudder).  After aerodynamic and design changes, the aircraft distinguished itself as "the chief bombardment weapon on the Western Front" according to a United States Army Air Forces dispatch from 1946.  The Marauder ended World War II with the lowest loss rate of any USAAF bomber.

A total of 5,288 were produced between February 1941 and March 1945, 522 of these were flown by the Royal Air Force and the South African Air Force.  By the time the United States Air Force was created as an independent service separate from the Army in 1947, all Martin B-26s had been retired from US service.  The Douglas A-26 Invader then assumed the B-26 designation — before officially returning to the earlier "A for Attack" designation in May 1966.

The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engine heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC).  Competing against Douglas and Martin for a contract to build 200 bombers, the Boeing entry outperformed both competitors and exceeded the air corps' performance specifications.  Although Boeing lost the contract because the prototype crashed, the air corps ordered 13 more B-17s for further evaluation.  From its introduction in 1938, the B-17 Flying Fortress evolved through numerous design advances.

The B-17 was primarily employed by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in the daylight strategic bombing campaign of World War II against German industrial and military targets.  The United States Eighth Air Force, based at many airfields in central and southern England, and the Fifteenth Air Force, based in Italy, complemented the RAF Bomber Command's night time area bombing in the Combined Bomber Offensive to help secure air superiority over the cities, factories and battlefields of Western Europe in preparation for the invasion of France in 1944. The B-17 also participated to a lesser extent in the War in the Pacific, early in World War II, where it conducted raids against Japanese shipping and airfields.

As of May 2015, ten aircraft remain airworthy.  None of them are combat veterans.  Dozens more are in storage or on static display.  The oldest of these is a D-series veteran of combat in the Pacific and the Caribbean.