"Time will not dim the glory of their deeds."

One hundred years of the American Battle Monuments Commission

This year marks the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC). The Commission was formed by legislation signed by President Warren Harding on March 4, 1923, a few years after the end of World War I, with the mission of establishing and maintaining military cemeteries in foreign countries for those American soldiers who have laid down their lives for the nation far from home, and of erecting memorials to honor them. This article will give you a brief history of the Commission and is dedicated to the sacrifice of all United States service members who rest in foreign soil.
 
For most of history, most combatants killed on the battlefield were either stripped of arms and armor and abandoned where they lay, or given a hasty mass burial. It was only in the 19th century that dignity for the rank-and-file dead was recognized as an important issue. The United States was one of the leaders in establishing formal ways of burying and honoring its fallen. For the first half of the century, American soldiers were usually buried near the place of their death, but often went unidentified. Only 60% of the Union soldiers killed in the Civil War were identified; compare this to the 82% of all U.S. service members in World War II, and the 97% identification rates of both World War I and the Vietnam War. One particular example of the nation’s effort to preserve the memories of its soldiers is Arlington National Cemetery, built on the grounds of General Robert E. Lee’s residence as an unofficial punishment for him joining the Confederacy.

The Spanish-American War of 1898 saw the United States became the first country in the world to pass legislation according to which soldiers dying in foreign lands had to be returned to the care of their next of kin if possible. This practice of repatriation was changed not by intent but by necessity during World War I, when the dead were too many and scattered over too large an area for collection and transport home to be feasible. The Department of War established eight cemeteries to consolidate and hold close to 31,000 fallen servicemen, the sites chosen after discussions with the host countries and with concern for such safety and health issues as the effect of many buried people on nearby water sources or agricultural land. World War I also saw the appearance of plain white crosses and posts bearing the Star of David (the latter for Jewish soldiers) as standard practice in American cemeteries in Europe, even though these early markers were made of wood rather than marble. A certain percentage of unidentified soldiers was randomly given David’s Star to express the general presence of Jews among them – this practice was abandoned by World War II.

Work on establishing the ABMC began in March 1919, a few months after the war’s end. Perhaps surprisingly, its original mission was not to administer the war cemeteries in Europe, but to construct monuments in honor of the war effort. General of the Armies John J. Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force, noticed that soldiers had already began building makeshift monuments, which sometimes had incorrect or inappropriate inscriptions; he also noted that some units that fought bravely were not represented by these memorials. Pershing therefore advocated the establishment of an organization to oversee such activities; this organization became the ABMC with Pershing as its first Chairman. Pershing’s credo became the motto of ABMC: "Time will not dim the glory of their deeds." The Commission later also took over the task of landscaping the eight European cemeteries and building non-sectarian chapels at each.

Another note of interest about the headstones is that they do not display the birth date of the deceased. Popular legend holds that this was done to avoid visitors crowding the graves of the youngest and therefore “most tragic” soldiers. In actual fact, the date is missing because there was not enough space on many crosses and stars.
 
The unidentified dead of World War I were marked with the same inscription as the ones in Arlington: “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.” World War II cemeteries changed “an American soldier” to “a comrade in arms” to reflect the presence of Marines, sailors, airmen and Coast Guardsmen among them. Even a very small number of civilians are buried in these cemeteries: entertainers, Red Cross employees and civilian technicians could also be laid to rest in these locations if they died while serving the troops.

World War II brought a new conflict to Europe and the rest of the world, and new challenges with it. In 1941, Pershing, still serving as the Commission’s first chairman, decided to evacuate American ABMC employees from France and Belgium before the countries were overrun by Nazi Germany. The Germans generally treated the abandoned American cemeteries with respect, with the exceptions of the destruction of several Jewish graves, and the demolishing of a monument to make way for an observation post along the Atlantic coast. The Nazi puppet state of Vichy France, then later Switzerland, sent funds to maintain these cemeteries even under German occupation.

These temporary burial sites, and the others cropping up in Normandy, also held dead German soldiers since there was no better way of disposing them (Read our earlier article – The German war cemetery of reconciliation). German graves were marked by a black wooden cross. The origin of this practice is lost to history. It’s been suggested that it harkens back to a statute in the Treaty of Versailles which prescribes that white crosses must be used for soldiers of the victorious side and black ones for the defeated, but the treaty contains no such actual rule. Like the later permanent cemeteries, the temporary ones also had a multi-confessional chapel and a visitors’ reception building built, and were given a respectful, orderly appearance with footpaths separating square-shaped plots and a central square.

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, Jr., the 57-year-old Assistant Division Commander of the 4th “Ivy” Infantry Division (Read our earlier article – Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, Jr.), was also buried in one of these temporary military cemeteries, namely one of the two in Sainte-Mère-Église. On July 12, 1944, just a month after the Normandy landings, he suffered a heart attack during the night and died within the hour. His funeral procession was led by a group of generals, including Omar Bradley, George S. Patton and Raymond “Tubby” Barton. Roosevelt now rests in the Normandy American Cemetery, next to his brother Quentin. Quentin Roosevelt was a pilot in World War I but was reinterred next to Theodore in 1955 upon his family’s request, making him the only soldier in the cemetery who did not die in the Normandy campaign.

Fourteen of the temporary cemeteries around the world were chosen to serve as permanent burial grounds after the war, and bodies from the other locations were transported to them. Similarly to the World War I cemeteries, these burial sites stand on ground provided by the host countries in perpetuity and free of charge. Contrarily to an oft-repeated mistake, they do not count as American soil, and fall under the legal jurisdiction of their host countries.

During the relocation of bodies to permanent cemeteries, next of kin were contacted and given a year to decide whether they wanted their relative to be laid to rest abroad or repatriated at the government’s expense and either given over to their care in a local graveyard or buried at a stateside national cemetery. Those interred overseas rest under a pristine marble headstone with their name, rank, unit, home state and date of death carved on it. The headstones of those who have received the United States’ highest military award also bear a star and the words “Medal of Honor.” Other than this, no distinction is made in regard to rank, creed or ethnicity.

There is one single exception to the above, born of necessity. After his death in 1945, General George S. Patton (Read our earlier article – The wars of George S. Patton) was buried at the Luxembourg American Cemetery. In accordance with the ABMC’s cemetery layout principles, he was laid to rest at the next available spot, which happened to be at the site’s farthest corner from the entrance. The throng of visitors to his grave, however, had trampled a path, completely destroying the lawn along the shortest route. In order to protect the ground, Patton was reburied at a special place of honor in front of and facing the other graves, and not coincidentally closer to the entrance.

The cemeteries are open every day of the year, except Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, managed by U.S. citizen employees of the ABMC and with daily maintenance tasks performed by local workers. A representative of the ABMC is always present during opening hours and is prepared to take visitors to a relative’s grave. If notified in advance, a small memorial ceremony is performed during such a family visit.
 
Today, the American Battlefield Monuments Commission operates 26 cemeteries and 32 memorials, monuments and markers worldwide. In addition to World War I and World War II cemeteries, there is also a Veterans Cemetery in the Philippines where non-World War II dead are also buried, as well as a cemetery in Panama and one in Mexico City: both predate the ABMC and mainly hold American soldiers who died during the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War. More than 218,000 American soldiers have been laid to rest far from home, but cared for, honored and remembered by their countrymen.

The most famous ABMC cemetery must be the Normandy American Cemetery, whose popularity as a visitors’ destination received a significant boost by the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan, whose opening and closing scenes are set there when the elderly James Ryan visits the grave of the film’s protagonist, Captain John Miller, played by actor Tom Hanks. Of course, Captain Miller was a fictional character, and his headstone, and a few others next to it, only props. These props faced the opposite direction as the real ones, preventing the names on the latter to appear in the film. The prop gravestone were set up near the graves of the Niland brothers, whose real-life story inspired the film’s plot.

While the Normandy cemetery is probably the best-known ABMC site, it is far from the largest, at least going by the number of people interred. (It is, in fact, the fourth largest one.) The distinction of being the largest goes to the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines, which holds the remains of 17,201 men. This is partly due to geographical reasons: there weren’t many good cemetery sites in the Pacific, so the Manila one collected bodies from a vast area. Additionally, it is an exceptional place in that not all the buried are U.S. service members: a special treaty between the United States and the Philippines allowed for the burial of Filipino soldiers who fought alongside American troops in the war. The cemetery is also remarkable for its Walls of the Missing, a feature present in all ABMC cemeteries, which displays a sobering 36,286 names. For comparison, all the other cemeteries have a total of 47,151 names combined, 18,095 of them in Honolulu. Rosettes are added to the walls to mark those whose bodies have since been recovered.

In contrast, the smallest cemetery is the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial Cemetery in Paris. Dedicated to the Lafayette Flying Corps, a group of American volunteers who flew airplanes in service of the French military during World War I, the cemetery holds the mortal remains of 51 of the unit’s dead. Like the largest ABMC cemetery, the smallest is also special from an administrative perspective in that it was not established by the Commission. It was originally created by a foundation and the French government in 1928, and was only taken over by the Commission in 2017.

If you would like to pay your respect to the American heroes who laid down their lives in distant lands and now rest there, you can do so on our tours that visit Normandy, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, and Italy, all of which include visits to local American cemeteries. Visiting any of these beautiful cemeteries is a moving experience not only for our Passengers but for our staff members, too. We are always excited to listen to family stories and to help organize next of kin ceremonies for family members returning to the graves of their loved ones.

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