Horham: St Mary

52.30556, 1.24060
TM 210 724
photos taken 11 July 2012

Horham: St Mary

If I know anything of my countrymen . . .the English heart is stirred by the fluttering of the Stars and Stripes as it is stirred by no other flag except its own.

Charles Dickens, New York, 1868

Carved in Oak by Jane Quail, of Gunthorpe, Norfolk, this memorial plaque shows the annunciation to the Virgin Mary by the Angel Gabriel, St Dunstan, Bishop of London and patron saint of bellfounders, the eagle of the United States of America and the shield of the 95^th Bomb Group (H) of the 8^th Air Force, whose association members contributed most generously to the restoration and re-hanging of the eight bells of St Mary’s Church, Horham, by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.

There is no stone to mark the place

They flew and fought and died that day.

Nay! Nothing but smoke that

Slowly drifts away.

Yet, there is a monument to those

Valiant young men,

This the grateful thanks that lives in

The hearts of freedom loving men.

                                    W. “Ike” Adamson

                                    CMSGT USAF (RET)

                                    DFC, AM/5, OPH/1

                                    “Miss Carry” B-17 F

                                                and

                                    “I’ll Get By” B17n G