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In the back window high up in the balcony, two F-86F Sabre Jets “climb towards the heavens and the Divinity.”
These aircraft, including unit inscriptions on the side windows, are part of the stained glass at Ramstein’s Southside Chapel and are reminders of the 86th Fighter-Bomber Wing.
The 86th Composite Group – the successor to the WWII era 86th Fighter Group – arrived at Neubiberg Air Base near Munich in 1947. Its new parent wing, the 86th Fighter Wing, activated the following year. In 1949, the wing initiated plans for construction of a 200-seat chapel using plain glass windows. Completed in just two months, the first service was held Dec. 24, 1949. But in the spring of 1950 the newly redesignated 86th Fighter-Bomber Wing had the windows replaced with stained glass.
The new windows included Numbered Air Force emblems and Army Air Force medals in the windows’ lower corners. Some Numbered Air Forces depicted, such as the 13th and 20th, only flew in the Pacific War and did not have any links to the 86th units. The wing members may have wanted visual reminders of the sacrifices made during the war – a war that ended five years earlier. These reminders would have been particularly significant for those building Neubiberg Air Base on the ruins of a former Luftwaffe base.
Fifty-five years later, the little chapel is still being used for worship services, though it’s now surrounded by the large Bundeswehr University complex. As the chapel’s dedication plaque stated: “Erected by the U.S. AIR Forces, [and still] dedicated to the Service of God.”
The 86th left Neubiberg in 1953 to become the first operational wing on the new Landstuhl Air Base, which at the time, was the operational side of Ramstein. The new chapel was already under construction when the wing arrived. Supporting another window project, the wing had new windows installed just in time for December’s services.
Instead of symbols of the past, they used symbols of their future, embodied by the wing’s newly acquired jets. Preserving a memorial to their mission in this way indicated a change in wing focus from 1950 to 1953.
The sentiment was further reinforced by the window inscription choice – a simple reason for the 86th Fighter-Bomber Wing’s mission that provides sound reasoning for our missions today – “For God and country.”
(Courtesy of the 435th Air Base Wing and 86th Airlift Wing history offices)
