In the Cotswolds sunshine, B-52s load deadly cargo

Carolyn, wearing a pair of slippers and carrying a box of tea bags, pointed into the distance where a number of khaki-clad figures were working on a large bomb under a Stars-and-Stripes flag.

"It seems unreal, loading up bombs in deepest England," she said. "But that's what puts the bread on my family's table."

The 34-year-old housewife was yesterday contemplating the mission that involves a squadron of American B-52 bombers heaving themselves into the sky from the runway of RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, each carrying a payload of state-of-the-art weaponry put in place with the help of her husband, a member of the USAF ground crew.

Within six hours of taking off from the British air base, each of the 14 Stratofortresses parked in the Cotswolds sunshine can be over Iraq ready to open the bomb-bay doors and unleash their 30-ton cargo of laser-guided bombs or cruise missiles.

RAF Fairford, set in the Cotswolds between Oxford and Swindon, was yesterday home to 1,000 personnel from the 424th Air Base Squadron and 2nd Bomber Wing, most of whom arrived in recent weeks from Louisiana or North Dakota, where the B-52 squadrons are based.

Most live out of contact from their host nation, cocooned in a barracks surrounded by razor wire carrying signs warning trespassers of the possible use of lethal force. Yesterday it was guarded by about 200 police.

The country lanes surrounding the air base were filled with police vehicles and mobile CCTV vans as Gloucestershire Police called in support from other forces as far away as Gwent, West Midlands and Lancashire. But RAF Fairford has also become a focal point for those opposed to the forced dismantling of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Several checkpoints were put in place for officers to stop vehicles and enquire as to what anyone skirting this corner of sovereign America thought they were doing.

Chief among the authorities' concerns is that tomorrow RAF Fairford will be the focus of an anti-war rally, advertised by a number of yellow AA road signs of the sort that normally signal village fairs and morris dancing.

Yesterday, however, there was little sign of the feared mass protest or invasion that prompted the £1m security operation.

At the peace camp set up by about 20 protesters at the end of one of the runways a month ago, there was a sense of overwhelming indignation.

Adele Perret, 27, a student from Stroud who has helped co-ordinate the camp, said: "It is nauseating. We know after they take off what time they will dropping those bombs and killing men, women and children – innocent people."

The campaigners said they would spend their time trying to talk to the American personnel about their missions to Iraq.

Meanwhile, for the more permanent residents around the installation, which has twice hosted the B-52s for bombing runs in the 1991 Gulf War and the Kosovo crisis in 1999, the lumbering giant aircraft aretolerated with a shrug of the shoulders and a joke.

Bill Jakes, 57, a gardener in Fairford, said: "It's a bit like having an unwelcome mother-in-law to stay. They're big, ugly, noisy and you do your best to ignore them."