Speech unveiling a memorial to the Eagle Squadrons
| Document type: | Speeches, interviews, etc. |
|---|---|
| Venue: | Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, central London |
| Source: | Thatcher MSS (Churchill Archive Centre): THCR [speaking text] |
| Editorial comments: | MT was to arrive at 1200. Her next appointment was at 1300 at No.10. (MT made a note on the speaking text in her personal papers: "It poured and poured with rain!") |
| Importance ranking: | Minor |
| Word count: | 454 |
| Themes: | Defence (general), Foreign policy (USA) |
We unveil a memorial today to a group of young Americans.
Brave young men who, though their own country was not yet at war, were ready to take up arms in Britain's hour of greatest need, and that of liberty itself.
Two hundred and forty three young men.
Some idealists who thought not of self but who fought for a cause greater than [end p1] themselves.
Many others individualists imbued with a love of flying and a vision of the world they wanted to see.
Whatever their reasons, they came to this country from all over America.
They came from Arizona, California, New York, Colorado and even from as far afield as Hawaii to join Seventy-One, One-Two-One and One-Three-Three Squadrons of the Royal [end p2]
Air Force.
The Eagle Squadrons.
How well chosen that name was!
The eagle symbolized America's re-awakening from isolation.
I recall the lines from Milton 's Areopagitica:
“Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her [end p3] invincible locks.
Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.”
Some of their pilots had already fought in the Battle of Britain, others in North Africa and Malta; all helping, in those difficult times, to turn the tide of a terrible tyranny. [end p4]
More followed, and when America entered the war, most of them transferred to the 4th Fighter Group of the United States' 8th Air Force.
I believe their new motto said they were: “Fourth but first” .
And in that spirit, wearing the wings and decorations of both countries, they continued in the great crusade against the inhuman dictatorship that was Hitler 's [end p5] Germany.
Today we remember them all, and are grateful to them as the few who were the vanguard of the many Americans who followed to fight in the air, from our shores, in the cause of freedom.
A freedom which America still defends unsparingly the world over.
The debt the free peoples of Europe owe to [end p6] your nation, generous with its bounty, willing to share its strength, seeking to protect the weak, is incalculable.
In all over a third of the Eagle Squadrons' pilots were killed in action.
From the 8th Air Force as a whole some 28,000 American airmen were never to return.
They are themselves commemorated in London at St. Paul's Cathedral in the American [end p7] memorial chapel below the High Altar, near to those of so many of our own great national heroes.
But today, in particular, we honour those of the three Eagle Squadrons—both the living and the dead—with pride and with affection.
We remember them, not simply as brothers in arms, but as true friends of freedom. [end p8] The country whose cause they freely adopted as their own, salutes and honours them.