This moment felt quite special, rather taking me by surprise as I rested my bike against the flagpole marking the spot where General Dwight Eisenhower had his office here in Bushy Park. The wind rattled through nearby trees and the flag fluttered a little, but really I just remember how no-one else was around, and there was silence and space as I stepped back and took my photographs.
The former site of Eisenhower's office
Memorial to SHAEF
Camp Griffiss was a heavily camouflaged US military base constructed in the grounds of Bushy Park, where it served as European Headquarters for General Dwight Eisenhower and the US Army Air Forces from July 1942 to December 1944.
The location reflected Eisenhower’s aversion to working in central London during the war, though it was a common belief amongst those stationed at the camp that the US base was originally intended to be at Bushey in Hertfordshire, and was built here in error.
It was named after Lieutenant Colonel Townsend Griffiss, (below), who had been aide to Major General James E. Chaney, and was killed aged 41 on February 15th 1942 in a friendly fire incident when the unarmed B-24 Liberator in which he was a passenger was mistaken for a German aircraft, and shot down by the RAF.
Griffiss was the first US airman to die in the line of duty in Europe after the US entered the war
Griffiss Camp was also home to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, (SHAEF), centre for planning Operation Overlord in 1944, the code name for the Allied invasion of north-west Europe that began with the D-Day landings. It once housed around 3,000 men.
By 1963 most of the camp's huts had been removed. A few hundred yards east of the main Teddington gate are two memorials: The former site of Eisenhower's office, laid out in brick, (see above), with a flagpole and a memorial to SHAEF; and a circular USAAF Memorial tablet on a raised pentagonal block within a five-pointed brick star within a small five-sided enclosure.
The USAAF memorial, installed by the Royal Air Force in memory of colleagues in the US 8th Army Air Force who occupied the camp site here from 1942. It also commemorates the Berlin Airlift, which was coordinated from Camp Griffiss after the war ended.
The round plaque, laid horizontally, is inscribed with “This tablet marks the site of the European Headquarters of the United States Army Air Forces July 1942 - December 1944 and is dedicated by the Royal Air Force to their comrades in arms. It is through fraternity that liberty is saved”. Sorry the rectangular plaque above is unreadable.
The SHAEF Gate
Plaque by The SHAEF Gate
Some of the old huts
Some of the young men
All EyesOnHowOur Allied amphibious invasion plans were going (The largest of it‘s kind in warfare history, to date).
General Dwight Eisenhower
The Canadian totem pole erected in 1992 to mark Bushy Park's link to the troops from that country stationed here in WWI
Red arrow: Site of Eisenhower’s office, with SHAEF memorial and flagpole
Blue arrow: USAAF memorial installed by the Royal Air Force
Yellow arrow: The SHAEF Gate
Pink arrow: Canadian totem pole
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