Memorial Day 2016: Remembering Four RAF Pilots
BartSimpson @ Tue May 31, 2016 8:14 am
Yesterday was Memorial Day in the USA. My wife and I took her mom out to the East Lawn Cemetary on Folsom Blvd. in Sacramento to visit my father-in-law who passed away five years ago and who was a veteran of both the Wehrmacht and the US Army (Korea).
While we were there we came across the gravesite of four RAF pilots who died while evaluating two US designed aircraft. Per the written history at the cemetery the two aircraft collided over the rural community of Fair Oaks, California and all four officers perished in the crash.
Online there is a mention of them.
http://www.valcomnews.com/?p=10999
$1:
RAF Officers
Four Royal Air Force officers were interred at the cemetery in 1943 after being killed in a crash of an American aircraft in the Fair Oaks area.
The men, Fred Hodge, John R. Latour-Eppy, John H.G. Moriarty and James A. Paterson, had been testing the aircraft, and RAF pilots and co-pilots had made 12 successful flights prior to the crash.
Although these men’s graves are occasionally inspected by a British official, no attempt has been made to return their remains to their native land.
Four Royal Air Force officers were interred at the cemetery in 1943 after being killed in a crash of an American aircraft in the Fair Oaks area.
The men, Fred Hodge, John R. Latour-Eppy, John H.G. Moriarty and James A. Paterson, had been testing the aircraft, and RAF pilots and co-pilots had made 12 successful flights prior to the crash.
Although these men’s graves are occasionally inspected by a British official, no attempt has been made to return their remains to their native land.
The US Marine Corps Recruiting Detachment for Sacramento is responsible for placing flags at the military graves on the occasion of Memorial Day and it is much to their credit that every year they respectfully place four UK flags on the graves of these honoured dead.
Let them not be forgotten.
Strutz @ Tue May 31, 2016 8:22 am
It's good that they are remembered and that their resting place receives this respect.
DrCaleb @ Tue May 31, 2016 8:58 am
