ALDBOURNE AMERICAN MEMORIAL DAY

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AMERICAN MEMORIAL DAY

ALDBOURNE

 

On the afternoon of Remembrance Sunday a special memorial service was held to remember the American units who were station in the village of Aldbourne and surrounding areas within the Kennet Valley.

 

The First Allied Airborne Association was invited to attend and parade its colors in support of the Screaming Eagles Living History Group who had organised the event in conjunction with the American Embassy.

 

The Association was pleased to be involved and mustered a full color party on the day. The groups aim was to provide a color guard to represent the 101st Airborne Division for the initial muster and a color guard to parade the colors of all 3 Airborne Division who had elements of their Divisions either training within the Kennet Valley or who entered combat from airfields close to the Village.

 

Even before the 101st Airborne Division arrived in the area in September 1943, the very first Paratroopers had arrived in England over a year before and were billeted at Chiltern Foilet. This units was the 2nd Battalion 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment and would in November 1942 deploy on the Airborne’s first combat mission as the independent 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion.

 

The actions of the 101st is legendary, the training around Aldborne is well documented but what is less known is that a large Glider element of the 82nd Airborne Division also air assaulted into Normandy and history from airfields not far from Aldborne.

 

What is even less known is that after the 101st Airborne had left, never to again return as a Unit, another Airborne Unit arrived in the Village and moved into the stables behind the Blue Boar Pub.

 

They were the 550th Glider Infantry Battalion who having seen combat in Southern France as part of the First Airborne Task Force, were now under the command of the 17th Airborne Division. It was felt that this year’s memorial service should remember all Airborne Troops of all 3 Divisions and therefore all 3 Divisional flags were paraded in the church and laid up at the alter.

 

The event has the full back of the current serving Military here in the UK and in the past senior American Officers based in the UK have attended the service, unfortunatly this year due to a change over of staffing at the Defence Collage no Officers were available to attend (Reports are in that for the next one a 101st Officer is in country and keen to support 101st related events during his deployment to the UK)

 

It should be noted here that this Special event is not related to the traditional British Remembrance services held at the village war memorial which takes place at the normal time and organised by the Royal British Legion. This is of course well attended by members of this group and appropiate dress is observed.

 

The ceremonial tasks we had set ourselves cannot be achieved without some rehearsals before the event, so directly after the Remembrance Sunday Service, while the ladies took a break in the Village Pub, the Color Guard reported to the church to undertake some on the ground training in all things “flags waving” For this task we had almost a new Color Guard taking part with some of the younger lads getting involved for the first time. This was encouraging and all taking part worked well together, the new troopers to the group doing an outstanding job.

 

There are many groups out there, both Allied and Axis who have a younger element to their groups and we should encourage them as they are what will keep our groups active in the years to come, but all good outfits will have a broad membership of younger and older members, it will always be the older members who have the experience and in most cases the security to maintain the groups dynamics.

 

The young lads in the pictures we post up are very keen at the moment and want to get into all kinds of stuff in the hobby, through the group. At Albourne it was for some their first Honor Guard task they had done and with only a few hours training did very well, funny enough I just received the pictures below from C and A Photography a couple of days ago, I think it shows Ben, Tom and Peter working hard to get it right.

 

Regards

 

Lee

 

 

 

 

 

[Teamski]

Really slick! Are the stables all gone now? I visited Aldbourne on my way back from visiting my collecting buddy in Cornwall in the late 1990's, but I couldn't find them.

 

-Ski