Description

Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial is a cemetery and chapel between the villages of Coton and Madingley in Cambridgeshire, England. It was opened in 1956, and commemorates American servicemen and women who died in World War II. It is administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission.The cemeteryThe cemetery dates to 1943, when it was opened as a temporary cemetery on 30.5 acres of land donated by the University of Cambridge. After the war, it was selected as the only permanent American World War II military cemetery in the British Isles, and about 42% of those temporarily interred in England and Northern Ireland during the war were reinterred at Cambridge Cemetery. It was dedicated on 16 July 1956.The cemetery contains 3,809 headstones, with the remains of 3,812 servicemen, including airmen who died over Europe and sailors from North Atlantic convoys. The inscribed Wall of the Missing includes four representative statues of servicemen, sculpted by American artist Wheeler Williams. The wall records the names of 5,127 missing servicemen, most of whom died in the Battle of the Atlantic or in the strategic air bombardment of northwest Europe.