Townsend Griffiss, forgotten hero of World War II
It's 70 years this week since the first US air force officer was killed in Europe, following America's entry into World War II. By heading the list of 30,000 USAAF men to lose their lives in the European theatre, Lt Col Townsend Griffiss became a footnote in the history of the war. But who was he and how did he die?
There is no memorial to Townsend Griffiss in the UK, but a corner of Bushy Park in west London offers the faintest of reminders.
Here, half covered by grass, are a handful of tablets in the earth, marking the various blocks of Camp Griffiss, the British headquarters of the US Army Air Force, set up in the summer of 1942. It's a royal park, and the royal deer help prevent the plaques disappearing into the grass entirely.
Overhead, civilian airliners pass by on their way towards nearby Heathrow. From above, the outlines can also be made out of some of the wartime buildings where up to 3,000 US and British servicemen and women toiled in the months before D-Day.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17011105
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