Milford chronicle., 1960-12-09
u. S. At Home In
"Merrie" England
BY RONALD THOMSON


ALCONBURY, England (AP)-A
jet plane screeched through the
sky and set glasses drumming in
the little pub where the sign read:
American Spoken Here"
Not a man at the bar stirred.
Outside, plewman scarcely
bothered to look up. His horse
plodded on, too, unmoved.
This is East Anglia sort of
Little America on the rich, dark
soil of rural England.
The whine of jet is as fam
iliar as the chug of tractor. And
the accents of New England and
the Deep South are as common
as, the rough dialect of the local
country folk
A network of U. S. and British
air bases, many equipped with
deadly rockets, runs through the
flat, bleak and marshy country
side.
Just outside the city of Hunt
ingdon, near a place called Upper
Stukeley, stands one of the most
important bases in Little Amer
ica-Alconbury, headquarters of
the 10th Tactical Reconnaissance
Wing of the u S. Air Force in
Europe.
More than 1000 American men,
women and children live on or
around this chilly plateau where
the Stars and Stripes waves in a
bowling wind
Alconbury, an oasis of the United
States, radiates the American way
of life. Its influence has in many
ways changed the surrounding
countryside.
One of England's few motels
operates within a mile or two of
the base. Shops in nearby towns
price their goods in British
pounds and the equivalent in
dollars. The quaint old pubs now
stock ice-something of a revo-
luton in a land where beer is
taken tepid.
Not that we want the English
people to change just because we're
here" says Capt. Robert M. Buss-
jaeger of st. Joseph, Mo.
"As a matter of fact, like the
English beer just the way it is
kind of warm"
Most of the Americans found
the English little hard to under
stand at first
Their reserve used to puzzle
strong of Dallas. "You know, this
business about having to be intro
duced before, you get talking.
"I'll never forget the first time
/ went into an English pub. There
were three or four of us Americans
and, from outside, we could hear
people talking and laughing.
"But when we went in the door,
the noise just snapped off. Nobody
spoke. When we walked up to the
bar we felt as if we were throw
ing out waves of silence all a.
round 1t wasn't very comfortable
and we didn't stay long.
well, the next time we went
back things seemed a little Easier.
1t took us three visits to get
accepted, but it was worth waiting
for. Now the regulars gather round
whenever we go in and everybody
has a lot of fun. One of the boys
goes down there Saturday nights
to keep bar
There is little or no anti-Amer-
ican feeling in East Anglia, where
the free-spending Yanks have done
lot to make the area prosperous.
There is absolutely, no personal
hostility" says Capt. Bussjaeger.
Even when someone writes a
letter to the papers critcizing the
United States, it's nearly always
another Briton who replies for
the defense"
Alconbury is the nerve center and
control headquarters for the wing,
which occupies other bases at
Chelveston, Molesworth and Brunt-
ingthorpe, 60 miles away. It's a
widespread operation that costs
upward of $12 million a year.
At Alconbury, you find the bowl
ing alley and the barber shop, the
stream of big American auto
mobiles, the stores and movie
theater, the handsome school, the
gymnasium and library, the chapel
and the cafe.
For hundreds of families, the
base is like real town-the place
where they have their own house,