A Memorial Day Visit To Three Battlefield Cemeteries

By Aero-News Senior Correspondent Kevin R.C. 'Hognose' O'Brien

For most of us, it's just a weekend off. But for some of us, it's a chance to remember, as the old toast goes, "absent friends."

"They gave up all their tomorrows for our today," a British glider pilot said of his fallen friends, as the years after World War II passed and their eternal absence sank in.

Death is a strange but certain thing. Each of us comes into life, like every living thing, owing God one death. But control over the circumstances of that death is not always -- not often, really -- given to us. With each death of a young soldier there is a sense of tragically lost potential. After all, look at where you are now, in life, and compare that (wherever you may be) to where you thought you were going at, say, twenty.

And with each death of an old soldier there is a loss of more than potential -- there are grieving wives and bewildered children.

In my war, I was lucky; my unit was, at the time, the only similar battalion to deploy and return without losing a single life. Of course, over the years, I've lost unit members in training accidents, and military classmates in action in places like El Salvador and Panama. I have compulsively tracked the fallen of my regiment in the present conflict; I understand the obsession that drives retired sergeant-major Reg Manning to track our dead from his war, Vietnam, as he does in a comprehensive and family-sensitive spreadsheet which can be found online.

Nations have their individual approaches to military loss, also. I recently returned from Normandy, scene of one of the most momentous battles of modern history. Men died here, in staggering numbers: even with many of the fallen repatriated to their homelands -- almost 60% of American dead were brought back home at the request of their families
-- the Cotentin Peninsula is burdened with scores of thousands of graves, in neat, well-maintained cemeteries. Following the written advice of expert Valmai Holt, I visited American, German and Commonwealth cemeteries. Each is plentifully equipped with all the triumph and tragedy that you would expect to accompany the staggering sight of thousands of grave markers; but each has an individual style which leaves a distinct impression.

The grandest of the cemeteries, and the best-kept, has to be the American Military Cemetery at St. Laurent-sur-mer, just inland from Omaha Beach (yes, this is the cemetery bookending "Saving Private Ryan"). The 9,387 grave markers are of a uniform type found in all veterans' cemeteries: a plain marble cross, or in the case of Jewish dead, a Star of David. Each bears the man's name, dates of birth and death, home state, and unit. Over 14,000 other Americans were once buried here, but were transported home in the late 1940s. In 1956, a soaring memorial was dedicated, featuring a classical-styled statue titled "Spirit of American Youth." Further mighty statues represent France and the USA. (God help me for saying this, but the style of the sculptures reminded me of Arno Breker). There are several Medal of Honor recipients buried here, including Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr.; his grave is a rare exception to the un-ornamented
crosses: the lettering is gilded.

There is also a garden with the names of 1,557 American missing in action. Expecting most of the missing to be sailors and airmen, we were shocked to discover that a plurality of them (430!) were from a single ground unit, the 262nd Infantry Regiment, 66th Division -- a unit that was not involved in the fighting for Normandy. Later I saw a gravestone of a unit member and noted the date of death was 25 December 1944 -- Christmas Day. (It turns out there are 37 such gravestones in the cemetery, and all with the same date of death -- same date for the 430 missing as well. To put it another way, there are only 11 men from the unit buried overseas -- all outside of Normandy -- who DIDN'T die Christmas Day).

At the Visitors' Building, there is always a staff member on duty; today's was a gracious young Frenchman with a flair for history. He didn't even let us finish the question. "Ah, the Leopoldville. That's a tragic story... there was just a Leopoldville survivor here a few weeks ago...." the young man rummaged in a stack of back guest books, and displayed the man's name and the entry, in an elderly hand: "Leopoldville Survivor." The staff guide told us the story of the Christmas Eve torpedoing of the Belgian troopship by U-486 (itself destined to be sunk by a British sub in April, 1945).

Our next stop is the German cemetery at La Cambe, only a few miles inland and next to the N13 highway. This was once an American cemetery, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s the German and American dead who rested, as they died, side by side, were separated to rest with their own countrymen. Now there are some 21,222 Germans buried here.

The German dead are buried under markers resembling the balkan cross. The markers lie flat on the ground, often recording two or more dead to a grave. They list name, rank, and dates of life, but not unit (sometimes service can be discerned by rank). Periodically there are stands of five "iron" (actually, rough granite) crosses that resemble gravestones, but aren't. "They're symbolic," a document explains, without suggesting what they're symbolic of. A large tumulus in the center of the cemetery is crowned by a cross with gloomy figures, and suggests an ancient, pre-Christian look. There are, of course, no Jewish dead here. The tumulus contains 207 German dead -- 118 of them unknowns.

The Germans are often very young or very old, compared to the Allies. Their nation had been at war longer and had lost so many men, mostly in Russia, that the definition of "draft age" expanded. Some private soldiers who died or soon after on D-Day were born in the 19th Century.

The US recorded as many details as possible about the unknown Germans it buried, including, where possible, their fingerprints. As a result there are still a few German unknowns being identified every year.

Where they have identified a former unknown, a temporary marker of metal records his details until they can get around to making a new monument for his grave.

The Germans have a hero of sorts in La Cambe as well -- tank commander Michael Wittmann, who is buried with his crew. Their grave was unmarked from 1945 until 1983 when it was unearthed and identified during road construction, whereupon the bodies were reburied at La Cambe.

Finally, we visit one of the many Commonwealth war graves, in this case the one at Bayeux. There are 4,144 Commonwealth and 504 others, mostly Germans; across the street from the cemetery is the Bayeux Memorial with the names of 1,800 whose graves are known but to God.

At some Commonwealth grave sites, the tops of the markers, which are marble tombstones, are shaped differently depending on the nationality of the decedent beneath, but not at Bayeux: Britons, Canadians, South Africans, and Germans all get the standard marker. It contains a bas-relief of the decedent's regimental badge, his name, rank, regiment and dates, and -- uniquely among the war cemeteries -- a space where his family can make a brief personal statement. The statements range from the religious to the patriotic, but some of them are simply heart-wrenching: "Our Only Son," or "We Miss You Ted."

Each of the cemeteries, you see, has its own style. The US burial ground is almost celebratory; it lays death on the balance with victory. "Look at us, we are the dead; we died, but for a cause. It was something worthwhile. Keep it up." The British ground is, for all one might speak of British reserve, made intensely personal by those brief messages. You can't get your head around the sheer numbers of deaths in any war, let alone this colossal world war. I looked at, at these three cemeteries, some thirty thousand graves and markers, a veritable city of casualties, but every one was a "Ted" that left a hole in someone's life. The German cemetery is almost apologetic in tone. "We have gone to Judgment, as you will too," say the black German graves. "Yes, our nation started the war, and who regrets that more than we?"

This Memorial Day, as you think of the family member who fell fighting evil in France, or the Phillipines, or Iraq, I hope you find it in your heart to extend your prayers to all the others, especially the only sons who have no one left to say a prayer over them. Even the enemy. It isn't always given to a man to select his country or his cause.

FMI: www.abmc.gov, www.volksbund.de, www.cwgc.org