American airmen honored on English website

Kingston Bagpuize, Oxfordshire, England, OT

A new website has come to our attention.

The site tells the stories of -
• WWII Air Station 403 at Kingston Bagpuize, Oxfordshire, England - where were based men of the U.S. Army 150th Engineering Combat Battalion, U.S. 342nd Engineering General Services Bn and, from February 1944, 2nd and 42nd Groups of the USAAF 9th Air Force. Their role was to test experimental runway surfaces for use in evacuating casualties of the Normandy invasion - and to maintain, repair and flight-test P51 Mustangs.
• The strategic story of WWI and WWII - and the individual stories of 64 local people and 24 airmen (including 3 Americans) killed from, over or on Kingston Bagpuize and two adjacent villages (Longworth and Hinton Waldfrist).

The site is pretty unique in treating as equal the deaths of local people and airmen from far away. The three Americans whose stories are told were from Illinois, Minneapolis and Mississippi.
All 88 of the stories are interesting, some of them incredibly so.

The author would like the families of men who served at Air Station 403, and especially the families of the men who died, to know their stories and that they are honored on the website and in the villages in England where they died.

The website is www.readtheirstories.com.



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