In March 1966 Charles De Gaulle, the French President, told the United States government that all their troops must leave France (though not the ones who were buried there).

As a result, the Americans came to Shropshire and reopened an Admiralty armaments depot at Ditton Priors. They stayed for only a couple of years, but this news report from 1981 says it was still a Soviet target in the event of nuclear war.

Click on the still above to watch it the report on the Media Archive for Central England site.

In 2009, after giving the history of the depot, I wrote:

My theory did not work in Ditton Priors - this is some years ago now. The pub said it had accommodation, but no one answered when I knocked. Eventually, as it came on to rain, a pretty red-haired girl opened an upstairs window and told me they did not do it any more.

So I tried the only bed and breakfast place in the village. They said they were full and made no effort to find me a bed somewhere else in Ditton Priors. Instead, they suggested I should walk to Burwarton. "It's only a mile," they said, when I could see from the map that it was three.

Eventually I arrived at the Boyne Arms. The landlady said they did not do bed and breakfast, but eventually she took pity on me and gave me a bed for the night. In any case, a couple I met in the bar were all for driving me to Bridgnorth, where there is plenty of accommodation. (West Midlanders are the friendliest people I know.)

I once read that they were still persecuting witches in this part of Shropshire until relatively recently.

About 1978, I should imagine.