Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial

Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial stands on the north slope of Madingley Hill, between the villages of Coton and Madingley, seven kilometres north-west of Cambridge. The 30.5-acre site was given by the University of Cambridge in 1943 for a temporary war cemetery. After the war the American Battle Monuments Commission chose it as the permanent American World War II cemetery in the United Kingdom. The remains of 3,812 servicemen rest here, with 3,809 headstones marking their graves. A further 5,127 names appear on the inscribed Wall of the Missing, most lost in the Battle of the Atlantic and the bombing of northwest Europe. The cemetery holds notable burials and memorials. Glenn Miller’s memorial remembers the jazz bandleader lost at sea in 1944. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., eldest son of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, is also commemorated here. Vincent F. Harrington, a US Representative and Air Forces officer, lies buried. Three crew members of the USAAF B-17 Mi Amigo, which crashed in Sheffield, are interred after repatriation. Herman Douthit, a civilian derrickman, is the only civilian buried with full military honours. The memorial building, designed by Perry, Shaw, Hepburn, Kehoe and Dean, is 85 feet long and 28 feet high. Inside, a large museum room and small chapel contain a great map of wartime sorties from East Anglia and stained-glass windows of the States of the Union. Mosaics of angels and aircraft cover the walls and roof. The landscape, arranged by the Olmsted Brothers, guides visitors through the ordered rows of headstones toward the memorial’s quiet strength.