The best and worst of days' is how one former USAAF pilot described his time flying out of this village 'somewhere in the south of England' during WW2. They played their part in D-Day and rejoiced at wars end. Many surviving pilots returned to the airfield to retrain for commercial flying and then the site became home to the United Kingdom's atomic weapons programme. Aldermaston was a pivotal airfield in a network of permanent stations, unlike so many wartime stations however it lives on, albeit behind barbed wire, as a poignant reminder of the determination and sacrifice of a generation that faced seemingly overwhelming odds.