´óÏó´«Ã½

This story is taken from an interview with Major John Potter, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interview and transcription was by Bruce Logan.
====

[Yanks]
I don’t suppose I ever knew [what US unit was in Portstewart].

You know the story of the American cemetery up on Castlereagh hills? They … I used to run this WW2 exhibition, and we had a man come from Troy just outside NY, very elderly gentleman who’d been part of the grave registration unit. And they’d been based on Wilton’s funeral parlour. And their job was to bury those Americans who’d … quite a lot killed flying in, Flying Fortresses across the Atlantic, and others who just died from accidental deaths. And they were buried on a place called the Rocky Road, which is just above Forestside. And on 8th May, Castlereagh borough council held a little memorial service up there, put a memorial up. That was a very nice gesture. All the bodies were taken away after the war, about 140 I think, and they were either taken home or to the Great American cemetery outside Cambridge.
It was awful for the Americans, really, because they had to fly in across the Atlantic, not very much training, very little experience of blind flying, at the end of a long tiring journey trying to find their way to an airfield in Northern Ireland. Nearly all the airfields were surrounded by mountains. And a terrible lot were killed. Something like 1000 airmen were killed in NI.

No memorial to them, either. All there is is some graves here and there, obviously, but no actual memorial. They came in to land at Langford Lodge, which is the great American airbase [near Lough Neagh]. It has tremendous atmosphere, because everything’s still there. The runways, the hangars … it’s a wonderful place.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.