As the normal way to start the
day, breakfast was blah...same as it has been since I arrived. We then took a bus after breakfast and headed
to the Cambridge American Cemetary and received a 2 hour tour from the
curator. He gave us a tour of the cemetery
and told us some unknown stories about the US dead who are buried there. Below are some of the details that we were
told:
· Over 3,000 dead US soldiers are buried there
from WWI and WWII.
· Over 5,00 missing names are engraved on the wall
in the cemetery including Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. –
JFK’s older brother whose
body was never found because his bomber in WWII caught on fire and
crashed into
the Atlantic before he could escape.
· All of the tombstones have a cross except 80
which are of the Star of David
· 24 tombstones are unknown
· 1 set of brothers are in the cemetery – I brother
is buried and the other brother’s body has never been
recovered and his name is
on the wall of missing
· All tombstones come from Italy
After the tour was over, we
headed to the RAF Mendenhall – the former British base that now is the home of
the US Air Force Refueling Station for a tour.
One of the pilots explained how the British government has granted us
permission to use the base and that there is still a British officer who lives
on the base and gives the American’s rules to follow. Next, we were given a tour of the KC-137 of
the cockpit, cargo hold, and rear section of the plane that extends the buoy
stick to help planes refuel in mid air.
The only thing that was boring about today’s tour was the Historian on
the US Air Force Base at RAF Mendenhall
Mendenhall – he was so boring and
dull! Considering we have had British tour
guides for the past 3 days and they are so cultured, refined, and energetic,
this guy was very monotone and everyone started to dose off once the tour of
the aircraft was over – I hope that is not how I will react when I return to
school for my 2 weeks of orientation days starting on August 15th!
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