Ready, set, summer New uniforms - RAF Lakenheath

By Sal Davidson – Community Relations AdviserHEROES OF AMERICA REMEMBERED IN ENGLANDMonday’s memorial ceremony will be held in a tiny piece ofEngland’s “green and pleasant land,” given by the University ofCambridge to the United States of America to remember their fallen.The cemetery was first established Dec. 7, 1943, the secondanniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Constructionof the cemetery and memorial was completed in 1956, and was dedicatedJuly 16 that year. East Anglia was used extensively duringWorld War II, and a greatnumber of airfields sprangup all over its flat landscape,as it made an idealnatural landing field for aircraft.Also, East Anglia isan area where a large numberof American casualtiesoccurred.CemeteryThere are 3,811American war dead buriedat the cemetery. There arealso a few burials of non-American citizens who diedin the service of the UnitedStates during the SecondWorld War. The fan-shapedgraves are arranged in quartercircles in a wide sweepacross the green lawns. Theview is best appreciatedfrom the path near thememorial. The headstones are aligned like the spokes of a wheel,which can be seen from a point at the north edge of the flagpoleplatform.The Wall of the MissingThe Wall of the Missing is 472 feet long and built of Portlandstone, a limestone quarried in the south of England. The names andparticulars of 5,125 missing are recorded here. Above the names isan extract of the Golden Book, running the full length of the wall,from the dedication by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. TheGolden Book is now enshrined in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London.Along the wall are four statues representing a soldier, a sailor, anairman and a coast guardsman. They are wearing their typical uniformsand bearing their weapons.The MemorialAlso in Portland stone, the memorial is 85 feet long, 30 feetwide and 28 feet high. On the north face of the memorial are fivepylons, each inscribed with a date representing the five years from1941 to 1945 in which the United States participated in the War.The main doors are of teakwood and bear bronze models of militaryequipment and naval vessels.The memorial is divided into a large museum chamber and a devotionalchapel. The museum has one map compiled by American artistHerbert Gute from data prepared by the American Battle MonumentsCommission. It shows the principal sea routes across the Atlantic andthe types of naval and other craft which supported the supply of menand munitions to the European areas of operation. Also shown are theair routes used by theUnited States Army AirCorps and the Royal AirForce.The map on the southwall shows the sites in theUnited Kingdom loaned tothe Armed Forces of theUnited States for preparationand support of militaryoperations. Air, seaand invasion routes necessaryfor the build-up fromJanuary 1942 through June1944, the D-Day landingsin Normandy, France, areshown. The map was compiledby an English artist,David Kindersley, usingfile photoAirmen of the 48th Fighter Wing participate in the wreath laying during the MemorialDay Ceremony at the 2005 Madingley ceremony.data supplied by theAmerican BattleMonuments Commission.A mosaic ceiling overthe altar depicts aircraftmaking their final flight toward Glory. The seals of the War and NavyDepartments are set in glass beside and above the main door and theseals of the states of the union are arranged in vertical rows from left toright in the order they entered the union.The ChapelThe words “Into Thy Hands, O Lord” are inscribed in bronze charactersover the teakwood doorway in the chapel. The words “faith” and“hope” are set into the chancel rails, also in bronze. A mosaic behindthe altar purports to interpret the supreme moment described in theScriptures when the archangel sounded his trumpet to announce thecoming of the Resurrection and the Last Judgment.Remaining LegacyIf you’d like to learn more about what your fellow countrymen foughtfor, a visit to the Duxford Air Museum - a few miles south of Cambridge,will give you lots of information of the U.S. involvement in World War II.Duxford is part of the Imperial War Museum which also has a facility inLondon, and the American Air Museum is a specially built hangar andexhibition to which artifacts are still being added. For further information,see www.iwm.org.uk.PAGE 16 JET 48 MAGAZINE MAY 26, 2006