I can remember being taken to an Open Day at RAF Bruntingthorpe when the USAF was there. Hollands Fair was there that day. It would have been a similar time to your picture post,Micky. I would have been 5 or 6 years old at the time so I would say around 1959. I bumped my head on the dodgems and I can remember a huge uniformed Yank with a crew cut rushing over to see if I was OK and help me back to Mum and Dad. Candy floss and coca-cola arrived fairly quickly!
USAF left Bruntingthorpe in August 1962. It was the overflow base for one US Squadron at the time as the ‘satellite’ airfield for their other 2 Squadrons at RAF Alconbury near Huntingdon.
It was the Americans who lengthened the runway from one mile to 2 miles to accomodate their heavy bombers.
19th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron of 10th TR Wing who flew B-47 Stratojets and later Douglas RB-66B “Destroyers”.
General De Gaulle had kicked all the foreign nuclear capability Air Forces out of France so most of them came back to Britain!