Mark Taylor and Sian Hogarth, who will be in character as American service personnel on the day.

Swaffham Museum will mark the 70th anniversary of the ‘friendly invasion’ by the US military during the second world war with a special American Day on Saturday.

About 50,000 USAAF personnel were stationed within a 30 mile radius of Norwich at any one time between 1942 and 1945, with many living at bases near Swaffham, including North Pickenham, Wendling, Bodney and Shipdham.

The free family event between 10am and 1pm on Saturday August 11 will include hands-on children’s activities, story telling and drama, and people will be able to handle some of the museums’s artifacts.

A special Swaffham Speaks session between 2pm and 4pm will include an illustrated talk about the USAAF in Norfolk, and visitors will be able to hear interviews from the museum’s new sound archive and add their own reminiscences.

Alice Mouncer, project officer for Swaffham: Within Living Memory said: “Local people have some fabulous recollections of GIs in and around Swaffham, from Father Christmas arriving at North Pickenham on a Liberator to dances at the Assembly Rooms. We’d love to record these memories for the museum’s sound archive whilst celebrating American connections to this area.”

The day will also include Norfolk’s American Connections Connecting People touring exhibition, produced by young people researching famous, and not so famous, American people and their links with Norfolk.