Duxford war museum receives American collection boost

American airmen have been based in East Anglia and further afield for decades

A Cambridgeshire war museum has been given £980,000 to boost its American collection and make more of it available to the public.

Imperial War Museum Duxford plans to overhaul the offering at its American Air Museum, built in 1997.

It also plans to put 15,000 rarely seen prints and slides online and carry out conservation work on its aircraft.

Robyn Llewellyn, from the Heritage Lottery Fund, said the grant would allow "fascinating stories" to be told.

The museum said the first phase of the project involves putting its Freeman Collection online, which contains thousands of pictures and artefacts about the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in Britain during World War Two.

Mr Llewellyn said: "The American Air Museum has possibly the best collection of US military aircraft outside the USA.

"This project will give IWM Duxford the opportunity to overhaul the displays and galleries and bring many of the fascinating stories of the First World War, Second World War, and more recent conflicts to life in new and exciting ways."