[303rd-Talk] Newcomer with questions

[Bob Van Pelt]

Gary and Gary:  The Mighty Eight Air Force Heritage Center is awesome and so is a visit to JAC at Molesworth - been to both a couple of times.  I've never been to the Lone Star Flight Museum.

The museum at Wright-Patterson AFB is also suppose to be grand, but I've never been there.  The Commemorative Air Force museum in Midland, Texas, is also very impressive.  In December I went to the CAF museum in Pheonix at Falcon Field and saw Sentimental Journey up close and in person.  I was also in Chino California last March and went to the Planes of Fame Museum to see Piccadilly Lilly, the B-17 used in the filming of 12 O'Clock High.

I highly recommend the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, England.  The May Spitfire Airshow will leave you breathless!  The American Air Museum is located there, too, and this is just an incredible museum at the former wartime home of the 78th FG.  The field was a WWI aerodrome and Spits flew from there during the Battle of Britain.

There is a good museum in Hendon I have heard about, but never visited, and the Tower Museums at Bassingbourn (91st BG), Rougham (94th BG), Debach (493rd BG), Thorpe Abbotts (100th BG) and Parham (Framlingham, 390th BG) are also incredible and well worth the visits.

And what can you say about Madingley.  Not much since I get too choked up whenever I think about it. I am always haunted by the words on the ceiling of the chapel:

IN PROUD AND GRATEFUL MEMORY OF THOSE MEN OF THE UNITED
STATES ARMY AIR FORCE WHO FROM THESE FRIENDLY ISLES FLEW THEIR
FINAL FLIGHT AND MET THEIR GOD. THEY KNEW NOT THE HOUR THE DAY
NOR THE MANNER OF THEIR PASSING. WHEN FAR FROM HOME THEY
WERE CALLED TO JOIN THAT HERIOIC BAND OF AIRMEN WHO HAD GONE
BEFORE. MAY THEY REST IN PEACE.

Bob