 In 1943, Martin B-26 Marauder bombers of the US Eighth Air Force’s 386th Bomb Group arrived at Boxted airfield – less than two miles away – sparking Freeman’s lifelong fascination with the wartime US Army Air Forces operating from Britain.When his father was granted permission to cut the airfield’s grass for haymaking, the young Freeman made the most of opportunities to examine the aircraft and befriend personnel on the base – later tenants of which included the 354th Fighter Group of the Ninth Air Force; and the Eighth Air Force’s 56th Fighter Group which, flying Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, became the highest-scoring USAAF group in the European theatre.The teenage Freeman also took bicycle rides to see many other airfields in the East Anglian counties of Essex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk, and collated aircraft identification numbers – a hobby that once led to a security alert and a warning from his headmaster at Colchester High School.