Tannington is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

Mid Suffolk Mid Suffolk is a local government district in Suffolk, England. Its council was based in Needham Market until late 2017, and is currently sharing offices with the Suffolk County Council in Ipswich. The largest town of Mid Suffolk is Stowmarket. ...

district of

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

in eastern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Located around ten miles south-east of Diss, in 2005 its population was 110. At the 2011 Census the population had fallen below 100, and not therefore being maintained on this site was included in the civil parish of

Brundish Brundish is a village and civil parish in the English county of Suffolk. The village is south-east of Stradbroke and north of Dennington in the Mid Suffolk district. The B1118 road runs through the village, which had a population at the 2001 c ...

History

World War II bomber incident

Late in the afternoon of 10 October 1943, an American

B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

, serial number 42-3506 nicknamed ''

Sir Baboon McGoon ''Sir Baboon McGoon'' was an American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress last assigned to the 324th Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bomb Group, 8th Air Force, operating out of RAF Bassingbourn (AAF Station 121), Cambridgeshire, England. The plane was feature ...

'', ran out of fuel and made a

belly landing A belly landing or gear-up landing occurs when an aircraft lands without its landing gear fully extended and uses its underside, or belly, as its primary landing device. Normally the term ''gear-up landing'' refers to incidents in which the pilot ...

in a soft and muddy sugar beet field in the village of Tannington. Efforts of a mobile recovery crew to repair the aircraft, and the aircraft's return to service, were documented in ''

Popular Science ''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...

'' magazine.Popular Science magazine, archive viewer, June 1944 issue, retrieved 8 June 2012 fro
this link
The aircraft was lost for good when it

ditched In aviation, a water landing is, in the broadest sense, an Landing, aircraft landing on a body of water. Seaplanes, such as floatplanes and flying boats, land on water as a normal operation. Ditching is a controlled emergency landing on the ...

into the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

on 29 March 1944, while returning from a bombardment mission over

Brunswick, Germany Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the riv ...

. The ''Popular Science'' article about the belly landing in Tannington appeared two months later, in the June 1944 issue.

References

External links

Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Mid Suffolk District {{Suffolk-geo-stub