Fifty years ago
THE AMERICAN cemetery at Madin- gley, near Cambridge (where King Edward VII lived during the brief peri- od in which he figured as an undergrad- uate), is an impressive sight, with its immense rows of white crosses, each with its bare name, date and rank. The names, some Anglo-Saxon, some Ital- ian, some Polish, some Scandinavian, bear witness to the unique catholicity of the American nation. Crosses and names are growing all too fast though the war is over, for aeroplane accidents — it is mainly, though not wholly, an Air Force cemetery — add steadily to the number. A great American flag floats or droops (according to wind or windlessness) at half-mast over a green slope that will long, perhaps for ever, be a place of sacred pilgrimage for Ameri- cans visiting England.
The Spectator 2 November 1945
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