Chapter 19: Graves Registration Service
The graves registration activities of the Quartermaster Corps in the ETO go back to 9 December 1941, when Americans first approached the British War Office regarding burial and mortuary facilities for American military personnel expected in Northern Ireland early in 1942.1 Throughout the rest of the war, the ETO Graves Registration Service worked in close cooperation with the Imperial War Graves Commission, which was instrumental in providing grave sites in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. By May 1943, thirteen burial sites, with a capacity of 230,000 graves, had been reserved exclusively for American use. This number proved to be far in excess of requirements, since plans to evacuate casualties from France never materialized. Only two locations —Cambridge, near Eighth Air Force bases, and Brookwood, a U.S. cemetery of World War I southwest of London, were retained as permanent sites after the end of hostilities. The United Kingdom was an important base for U.S. naval and air operations, and over 9,000 Americans were interred there by April 1945. But this was essentially a static cemeterial program, closely resembling activities of national cemeteries in the zone of interior. Bodies were embalmed by British civilian concerns and buried in locally procured wooden caskets. Nevertheless, the Graves Registration Division, OCQM, acquired a certain amount of useful experience in the administration of cemeteries and in documentation, which could be applied under active combat conditions.
Ground combat operations on the scale of OVERLORD inevitably meant a far greater number of casualties than those experienced before the Normandy landings. Personnel were needed in the field during hostilities to locate, collect, identify, evacuate, and bury the bodies. In the interests of morale, both on the battlefield and at home, these measures had to be taken speedily, accurately, and with proper respect. A succession of studies outlining the organization and methods for a successful graves registration program on the Continent began to appear in October 1943. During the following spring these studies were absorbed into the Mounting Plan of SOS and the NEPTUNE Plan of First Army.
With regard to both the location of cemeteries and the assignment of trained graves registration units in the forward areas, every effort was made to benefit by the experience of American troops
in World War I and more recently in the Mediterranean theater. There was no desire to emulate the employment of 2,240 temporary burial sites in 1917-18 nor to repeat the technical and administrative difficulties that had arisen later when the time came to concentrate or repatriate the dead. First Army’s Burial and Graves Registration Plan, therefore, foresaw the possibilities and advantages of operating corps or even army cemeteries in preference to divisional or task force burial sites. Drawing on his experience in North Africa, Colonel McNamara emphasized also that the effective collection of battlefield dead depended on the presence of trained graves registration companies in the field rather than reliance on makeshift teams detailed from among the combat troops. He felt very strongly that administration of this program and supervision of burial records were army level responsibilities.2
The Graves Registration Division, OCQM, was responsible for the training of graves registration units in the United Kingdom in preparation for the cross-Channel assault. Maj. (later Lt. Col.) Maurice L. Whitney, who had been division chief since July 1943, supervised the training and allocation of these units, and drafted most of the theater level regulations governing their burial procedures in the field. In May 1944 he became graves registration officer of the Forward Echelon, COMZ, and was succeeded as Chief, Graves Registration and Effects Division, OCQM, by Lt. Col. Arthur C. Ramsey. This officer remained in the United Kingdom, and on 13 August Lt. Col. Earl F. Sechrest became the new chief.3
Personnel for Graves Registration Activities
The OVERLORD troop basis for First Army included three assigned graves registration companies and two more on loan from SOS. This provided one company for each of four corps (including one to be transferred later to Third Army) and one company to remain directly under army headquarters. For the initial lodgment phase, one platoon was attached to each of the amphibious assault divisions and each engineer special brigade. The NEPTUNE build-up schedule called for eighteen graves registration platoons to be ashore by D plus 12 to support a force of eleven divisions. On D plus 6, there were fourteen platoons in the two lodgment areas, attached to units as follows:4
OMAHA Beach
| Platoon | Unit |
| Hq 606th GR Company with 2 platoons | V Corps |
| — 1st Platoon | 1st Infantry Division |
| — 2nd Platoon | 29th Infantry Division |
| 2nd Platoon, 607th GR Company | 5th Engr Special Brigade |
| 3rd Platoon, 607th GR Company | 6th Engr Special Brigade |
| 2nd Platoon, 608th GR Company | XIX Corps |
UTAH Beach
| Platoon | Unit |
| Hq 603rd GR Company with 2 platoons | VII Corps |
| — 1st Platoon | 4th Infantry Division |
| — 2nd Platoon | 9th Infantry Division |
| 4th Platoon, 607th GR Company | 1st Engr Special Brigade |
| 1st Platoon, 3041st GR Company | VII Corps (for 82nd AB Division) |
| 2nd Platoon, 3041st GR Company | VII Corps (for 101st AB Division) |
On the following day, D plus 7, the graves registration platoons attached to the engineer special brigades reverted to the First Army quartermaster, who thereupon assigned one company each to the V, VII, VIII, and XIX Corps, and retained the 607th Graves Registration Company under his own control to operate an army cemetery. That basis of allocation was maintained in the First and Third Armies all through the fighting in Europe, and was also regarded as ideal by the Seventh and Ninth Army quartermasters, who had to get along with three companies each during most of the campaign. Behind the combat zone, graves registration units were concentrated at the forward cemeteries, where activity was greatest. ADSEC and CONAD attempted to keep at least two platoons at each cemetery where interments were still being made, but even in the late spring of 1945 only ten graves registration companies and three separate graves registration platoons were available in the entire Communications Zone. Thus the total ETO allocation was twenty-four and three-fourths graves registration companies.
It was often necessary to operate a cemetery with service company personnel, directed by a few enlisted graves registration technicians. Large numbers of laborers were needed at every cemetery, since graves registration units themselves did not normally dig graves, build roads, or dig drainage ditches, but the exact number utilized is not known. Such laborers were usually POW’s, but since skilled technicians were not required they were supplied from base section labor pools, which did not report separately on labor used for various purposes. The number of local civilians employed was negligible. During the pursuit across France, First Army used about 250 U.S. service personnel and an equal number of POW’s in its cemeteries. Later, in the fighting along the German frontier, these numbers dropped to 150 service troops and 50 POW’s. Third Army did not report on POW’s used for graves registration purposes, but utilized an average of two and a half QM service companies at its cemeteries throughout the European campaign, with the heaviest utilization (four companies) falling in the period December 1944–March 1945, when the tactical situation made the use of POW’s inadvisable. Ninth Army normally allotted one service company per corps for this purpose. In the Communications Zone, once burials had been completed, the function of supervising routine custodial activities was usually transferred to a QM composite company headquarters, type AC.5
Graves Registration Supplies
In the ETO, graves registration supplies were considered to be Class II expendable items, and were stocked at Class II and IV depots. Since sheets and blankets were both in short supply, cotton mattress covers were normally used as shrouds. The beach maintenance sets for Operation NEPTUNE included one mattress cover for 375 man-days, and follow-up sets decreased this allowance to one for 450 man-days. At the end of July 1944, the supply in Normandy had been depleted, and Littlejohn instructed his rear headquarters in London to ship 50,000 mattress covers immediately—by air if necessary. During the next several months, graves registration supplies were requisitioned by daily telegram as were other Class II supplies, with the same unfortunate results. After this procedure was amended in December 1944, Littlejohn prescribed that 20-day credits of graves registration supplies should be established for each army and base section. These credits were primarily to define depot missions, and not to control issues. Emergency requisitions of supplies actually used in processing the dead, such as mattress covers, crosses, and effects bags, were always honored regardless of credits, but it was sometimes necessary to edit requisitions for the distinctive equipment of graves registration units, such as rubber gloves and stripping knives. In the base sections, quartermasters were called upon to supply such items as flagpoles, fencing materials, garden tools, grass seed, and shrubs for use at cemeteries. Only articles locally procurable in the ETO were supplied for this purpose.6
Land to be used as cemetery sites was, legally, no different from land requisitioned for other military purposes. NEPTUNE plans specified that the designation of cemetery locations was a function of corps commanders, to be delegated to division commanders if necessary. The actual selection was usually made by a graves registration staff officer or the commander of a graves registration unit. From the first, these officers realized that many of the sites selected would probably become permanent cemeteries, and attempted to exercise foresight in choosing desirable locations. Nevertheless, at the end of hostilities all cemeteries still had the official status of temporary burial sites, a situation that continued until 5 August 1947, when the President approved Public Law 368. That act empowered the Secretary of War to acquire foreign land for U.S. military cemeteries, and thereafter formalities were speedily concluded for the permanent acquisition of five sites in France, two in Belgium, and one each in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. More than forty other sites were evacuated, rehabilitated, and returned to their rightful owners.7
Burials in the Lodgment Area
As with other QM activities, work planned for the first two days on the beaches was delayed by unexpected difficulties. Sites that had been earmarked
for burial purposes were still in enemy hands. The 3rd Platoon, 607th Graves Registration Company, landed on OMAHA Beach on D-day and immediately set up a collecting point on the beach, within the sector of the 6th Engineer Special Brigade. A site for a cemetery, later designated St. Laurent No. 1, had been selected on a hill just inland from the beach, and the 309th QM Railhead Company and the 3168th QM Service Company were detailed to dig graves and assist in evacuation. The dead on and behind the beach were numerous, however, and enemy snipers discouraged the digging of graves. Since prompt disposal of the bodies had become imperative for sanitary reasons, temporary burials at a site known as St. Laurent No. 2 were made by digging trenches in the sand with a bulldozer. Colonel McNamara had given express instructions that no burials were to be made on the beaches, and this emergency site was never regarded as a cemetery; it was closed at midnight on 10 June, after 457 interments had been made. During the next week all these bodies were moved to St. Laurent No. 1, but even so the temporary burials had not been a waste of time. The original lodgment area was so constricted that the presence of the dead had actually hampered tactical and close support operations, and also had a demoralizing effect upon reinforcements coming ashore. A very similar situation prevailed on UTAH Beach, where the 4th Platoon, 607th Graves Registration Company, made 356 emergency burials at Pouppeville for the 1st Engineer Special Brigade. The two airborne divisions which dropped in the area behind UTAH Beach before dawn of D-day established their own emergency cemeteries, using organic personnel. Sgt. Elbert E. Flagg of the 603rd Graves Registration Company landed with the glider force of the 82nd Airborne Division late on D-day, and on D plus 1 selected a site near Blosville, where 530 bodies were interred in the next few days, partly by men of the 407th Airborne QM Company and partly by French labor. The Quartermaster Section, 101st Airborne Division, directed similar emergency burials at a site near Heisville, which were also performed by organic teams. These were hasty battlefield burials, in graves not more than three feet deep. They were never meant to be permanent.
Meanwhile, the 1st Platoon, 603rd Graves Registration Company, opened a cemetery for the 4th Infantry Division at St. Martin-de-Varreville on D plus 3, and simultaneously the 2nd Platoon of the same company established another cemetery for the 9th Infantry Division at Ste. Mère-Eglise. The next day, the 2nd Platoon, 606th Graves Registration Company, opened a cemetery for the 29th Division at La Cambe. Thus by June 10th there were eight cemeteries in the two beachheads, or one per division. But during the next week, when graves registration platoons were pulled back from the brigades and divisions and one graves registration company was assigned to each corps, there was a very natural trend to reduce the number of cemeteries. Although First Army had taken over operation of St. Laurent on 13 June, V Corps did not open another cemetery until after the St. Lô breakthrough, preferring to evacuate back to that location. The VII Corps began to operate Ste. Mère-Eglise on 16 June, but finding the site too small, opened a
separate cemetery for enemy dead at Orglandes three days later. Since the original cemetery was filled very rapidly by transferring bodies from Heisville, Pouppeville, and St. Martin, another site, Ste. Mère-Eglise No. 2, was opened on 25 June. La Cambe had been taken over by XIX Corps on 15 June, and on 24 June a new cemetery was opened at Blosville for VIII Corps, near the emergency burial ground of the 82nd Airborne Division. First Army began to operate Orglandes for both VII and VIII Corps on 17 July. It should be noted that all the sites retained in operation were on good roads; Ste. Mère-Eglise, Blosville, and La Cambe were on N13, the main Cherbourg–Paris highway. By 8 August all these cemeteries, containing more than 30,000 dead, had been transferred to ADSEC.8
Collection and Identification
The collection, evacuation, and identification procedures which necessarily began on the battlefield were varied and to some extent improvised. Because the precombat training of the field soldier did not include instruction in graves registration procedures, the green corps and divisions in Normandy learned only by experience the most efficient way to employ both trained graves registration personnel and collection teams detailed from organic combat units. Each corps used a different system in Normandy, but that of the VII Corps, in its drive to Cherbourg, was judged by the First Army quartermaster to be the model for future operations, and the testimony of observers indicates that it was employed by other units and armies in subsequent campaigns. The company headquarters and all four platoons of the 603rd Graves Registration Company were concentrated at the VII Corps cemetery, first at Ste. Mère-Eglise and later at Marigny. Details were dispatched from the company to operate collecting points as required for each division. Such a team normally consisted of four men, and from one to three teams were sent to each division as required by the tactical situation. The unit collection teams carried the bodies to a battalion collecting point in the vicinity of the battalion aid station, from which they were evacuated to the division collecting point by regimental service troops. Here bodies were identified and transferred to graves registration company vehicles for delivery to the corps cemetery. Organic company transportation was supplemented by eight 2½-ton trucks from VII Corps. This system made it possible for one company to evacuate and bury the dead from as many as seven divisions without requiring additional personnel. The identification of as many bodies as possible at the collecting point before they were removed from the vicinity of the divisions also resulted in a reduction in the percentage of unknown bodies delivered to the cemeteries.9
This method of operating became the normal one in the ETO, despite the very considerable burden it placed upon the combat units. The current organization of the graves registration company, which has already been described in connection with Mediterranean operations, made it impossible for that unit to assume greater responsibilities. An augmented graves registration company, capable of locating the dead on the battlefield and handling the entire evacuation procedure, was authorized by the War Department in September 1944. But the revised T/O called for 265 officers and men, an increase of more than 100 percent, and since no corresponding increase in personnel was made available, such units were never used in the European theater. Inexperienced tactical units were inclined to complain that these duties tied up men and vehicles needed for combat, but actual practice in the field demonstrated that prompt evacuation and identification of the dead by their own units brought the best results. Whenever circumstances made such action impossible, the proportion of unidentified dead promptly increased. Notable examples were the airborne operations in Holland and rear-guard actions during the German Ardennes offensive; in both instances tactical considerations forced a delay in evacuation. With combat experience, the troops came to place increased emphasis upon correct identification of the dead, and showed greater willingness to cooperate toward that end. For example, by the end of October 1944 it was the consensus of division quartermasters within the battle-hardened XIX Corps that additional graves registration personnel were not needed. The troops themselves actually preferred to evacuate and assist in the identification of their own comrades rather than leave them lying unattended in the fields to be picked up later.10
After the breakthrough at the end of July 1944, the lengthening lines of communication complicated evacuation. In an attempt to hold the number of cemeteries to a minimum, First Army set up a system of relay points where trailer-loads of remains were transferred from corps vehicles to army graves registration vehicles and removed to the rear for burial. Furthermore, with the combat elements rushing across France and inevitably overlooking isolated bodies, collecting teams from the graves registration company at army level were dispatched to sweep the areas and check on reports, often fragmentary or inaccurate, of bodies located by civilians, military police, and civil affairs units.
While no single factor can conceivably explain the strengths and weaknesses of graves registration procedures in the combat zone, the records of the summer offensive in both northern and southern France indicate that pursuit warfare and lengthened lines of communications adversely affected the evacuation system. In a fluid battle situation, characterized by the disengagement of the enemy and decreased enemy artillery fire, the number of casualties naturally decreased, but simultaneously the organic collection teams had less time to locate and evacuate the dead, and supporting graves registration units were
dispersed over wider areas. Thus, amidst fewer casualties, the summer offensive saw the proportion of unknowns increase in all the armies.
The percentage of unidentified bodies interred became the accepted yardstick of efficiency in graves registration operations in the ETO. The wartime record of First Army was 1.6 percent, including 1.2 percent in Normandy, 2.2 percent in the pursuit across France, and 1.4 percent in the fighting along the German frontier. This compared favorably with the 1.1 percent achieved by Fifth Army under more favorable conditions in Italy. Third Army, beginning with 3.8 percent in August 1944, speedily improved its performance and at the end of the war had succeeded in identifying all but 0.58 percent of the dead interred in its cemeteries.11
The most significant improvement in the identification performance of Third Army undoubtedly resulted from insistence that all identifications be checked at the corps collecting points. This meant that trailers had to be unloaded and reloaded, greatly increasing the labor involved, but experience proved that the great majority of unidentified bodies could be identified by simply inquiring of the combat units, if the inquiry was made promptly enough. What this amounted to was placing the identification process forward with the evacuation phase of graves registration, instead of with the burial phase at the cemetery. The system was very similar to that of VII Corps already described.
In its campaign through the Brittany Peninsula, the 6th Armored Division found that record keeping on deceased personnel was much improved if, in addition to identifying the bodies at the collecting point, the teams also presented to the divisional adjutant general a list of bodies delivered to the cemetery. The subsequent experience of the 6th Armored serves as a valuable example of refinement in evacuation and identification procedures as Third Army troops moved eastward across France. Graves registration teams were organized by each combat command, which operated local collecting points in its own forward service area. From these points, the bodies were removed to the division collection point situated advantageously along the axis of supply between the division rear and the army cemetery. Operating under the assumption that the possibility of identification diminishes as the bodies change hands, registration personnel held remains at the collecting points until a certification of identity was obtained. If identification tags were missing from the body, or if effects in a burnt-out tank did not reveal laundry marks, pay books, identification cards, or personal jewelry, such
circumstantial evidence as the name, number, and type of vehicle, names and known fate of other crew members, and location and date of action, was sent to the division graves registration officer for further analysis.
In December, Third Army made another major contribution to the techniques of battlefield identification by having the Signal Section photograph facial remains which had been artfully reconstructed by the use of cosmetic wax. This procedure frequently aided recognition by friends and former comrades, and proved particularly useful in distinguishing American from German dead after the Ardennes fighting, in which a whole enemy unit infiltrated the American sector wearing U.S. uniforms and identification tags. But Third Army’s most significant contributions to the graves registration service were, first, emphatic and explicit recognition that a positive identification was the last great service a combat unit could perform for its fallen comrades; and second, the elimination of the platoon as a working unit within the graves registration company. The organizational change was simply an improved means of achieving the recognized objective. The small collecting teams sent to corps service areas were specialists in identification, trained to cooperate with the combat units. The rest of the graves registration company was composed of specialists in cemetery maintenance. This functional separation of duties made four platoon headquarters unnecessary. Third Army burial directives enumerating these principles, while very similar to those of other armies in general content, spelled them out more definitely and were pervaded by a distinctive tone of command. In the immediate postwar period the USFET General Board indorsed Third Army views on the need for specialists, for a reorganization of the graves registration company, and for a clearer delineation of responsibilities.12
Cemeteries in the Combat Zone
By the middle of September, First Army was on the German frontier. During the pursuit across France 4,000 Americans had been interred in five FUSA cemeteries—Le Chêne Guérin, Gorron, St. André, Solers, and Fosse—which had been opened between 8 August and 8 September. Almost immediately upon becoming operational on 1 August, Third Army departed from its plan to employ corps cemeteries and instituted an army cemetery system. The VIII Corps cemetery at Blosville, at the neck of the Cotentin Peninsula, was transferred to Patton’s forces on 1 August along with the corps itself, but was operated as an army cemetery thereafter. In successive weeks Third Army cemeteries were opened at St. James, St. Corneille, Villeneuve-sur-Auvers, Champigneul, and Andilly, in the path of Pat-ton’s summer sweep along the right flank of the Allied advance.
As the American front line stabilized along the fortified German border, each army took steps to establish a single cemetery that was as close as possible to the front lines and still equally accessible to its component corps and divisions. First Army selected a site at the Belgian village of Henri-Chapelle near Limbourg, and on 25 September opened the cemetery that ultimately became one of the two largest U.S. burial grounds
on the Continent. Ninth Army, which had recently arrived from Brittany to take position on the left flank of the American line, lacked sufficient graves registration personnel to maintain a separate cemetery and for seven weeks evacuated its own dead to Henri-Chapelle. On 10 November, General Simpson’s forces opened their own cemetery near Margraten, in the southeast corner of the Netherlands, and evacuated their dead to this point for the duration of the war. Meanwhile Third Army, which had opened a cemetery at Andilly near Verdun on 12 September, moved it to Limey, south of Metz, a month later, when heavy rains prevented further operations at the older site. When Patton’s forces turned north to help reduce the Bulge, it was necessary to open new cemeteries at Grand Failly, north of Verdun, on 23 December, and at Hamm, in the suburbs of Luxembourg City, on 29 December.
These multiple locations in the same general area were required by a complicated tactical and logistical situation. Reviewing his experience after the end of the fighting in Europe, the TUSA quartermaster believed that normally an army cemetery could be utilized until evacuation distances to it exceeded too miles. Presumably that opinion was based upon performance in Germany, where Third Army opened cemeteries at Stromberg near Bingen, at Butzbach south of Giessen, at Eisenach, and finally at Nuremberg. First Army operated over even greater distances, evacuating its dead to Ittenbach, in the original Remagen bridgehead, until April 1945, when a new site was selected at Breuna near Warburg. None of the U.S. cemeteries in Germany were large, and immediately after V-E Day all of them were evacuated, most of the dead being transferred to Henri-Chapelle, Hamm, and St. Avoid, a Seventh Army cemetery in eastern France.13
Seventh Army’s experience illustrates the special problems of mountain warfare. Epinal cemetery, as already pointed out, was easily accessible to the VI Corps, but not to the XV Corps, operating to the north. The farther the troops advanced to the east, the more rigidly their movements were channelized by the steep mountain roads through the Vosges. On 4 December the 46th Graves Registration Company opened a new cemetery at Hochfelden, fifteen miles northwest of Strasbourg, which was in effect a XV Corps site. The VI Corps continued to evacuate to Epinal. But within a few days both corps were redeployed to attack northward into the Siegfried Line. Because of the limited road net neither existing cemetery was adequate for the northward attack, and on 18 December a cemetery was opened at Niederbronn. The new site was less than twenty miles north of Hochfelden in a straight line, but the distance on roads passable in the wintertime was nearly five times as great. Niederbronn was overrun by the Germans early in January, and although quickly recovered was never reopened. Epinal and Hochfelden continued in use until St. Avold, the largest Seventh Army cemetery, was opened on 15 March.14
In general, Third Army buried German dead in separate cemeteries, while
First, Seventh, and Ninth Armies used the same cemeteries for both U.S. and enemy dead, but segregated them by plots. Both systems implied that the number of U.S. and German burial sites would be approximately equal, and this was actually the case. The armies attempted to provide equal care for all war dead, a policy Littlejohn heartily endorsed. On 17 February he wrote to Col. Henry W. Bobrink, recently appointed chief of the Graves Registration and Effects Division:
1. Yesterday I discussed at length with Lt Gen Patton, the CG Third Army, the burial of American Dead, Allied Dead, and enemy Dead.
2. General Patton advised me that the enemy does one thing exceptionally well—and that is giving proper and adequate burial to his own Dead, and that he extends the same courtesy to our Dead, and to the Dead of our Allies.
3. General Patton further stated that it is his policy to apply the German policy in burying the Dead in the Third Army area. ...
4. I would like you to follow the general policy which is set forth above.
5. Personal opinions shall in no way have a bearing on this problem.15
General Patton’s policy prevailed in COMZ. It might also be noted that the wisdom of Third Army policy, regarding separate cemeteries for German dead, was later vindicated. When the time came to concentrate American dead at large permanent cemeteries, the German plots at Margraten, Henri-Chapelle, and Epinal had to be evacuated. Such action was not necessary at any Third Army cemetery.16
Cemeterial Improvements
ADSEC’s graves registration activities began on the Continent at the end of June when, as a subordinate unit of First Army, ADSEC was assigned the mission of evacuating both American and enemy dead from the hospitals, pillboxes, and streets of Cherbourg. For the first two weeks, this task was executed by a four-man detail from the 99th Infantry Battalion, but with the arrival of the 610th Graves Registration Company a more orderly system was instituted. By late July ADSEC was moving forward, and the 56th QM Base Depot organized the 1st QM Group, under the command of Colonel Whitney, to assume graves registration responsibilities. By the time Normandy Base Section came into existence in mid-August, this unit of trained specialists had taken over direction of all the cemeteries in the Cotentin Peninsula, and its responsibilities continued to expand over the next seven months as the base section increased in size. By early 1945 the group was supervising sixteen cemeteries in Normandy and Brittany Base Sections, operated by three graves registration companies. This supervision was mainly concerned with the technicalities of identification, concentration of remains
in cemeteries expected to be permanent, and statistical reporting, but the group also directed routine custodial, maintenance, and beautification activities, including the employment of a local landscape architect.17
Colonel Whitney considered his main function to be a systematic sweeping of old battlefields to insure that all American dead were located, identified, and interred in official cemeteries. Apparently he felt that in this mission he was acting as a direct field representative of the Chief Quartermaster, and his SOP for the group so stated. But Littlejohn’s concept was that the group was a team of specialists, to be loaned to base sections as needed. Significantly, he directed that Whitney’s first operation plan should be submitted through channels. Friction continued for months, and in March 1945 Col. John H. Judd, the Normandy Base Section quartermaster, requested that Whitney be relieved. Instead, Littlejohn, who considered Whitney his ablest graves registration technician, moved the group headquarters into Oise Section. Quite apart from the conflict of personalities, this forward displacement was urgently necessary for tactical reasons. The armies were already crossing the Rhine, and ADSEC and CONAD were preparing to follow them. Oise Section was destined to inherit most of the evacuated territory up to the German frontier, including eight large cemeteries, during the next few weeks. Shortly thereafter, the Chief Quartermaster also called forward the three veteran graves registration companies that had operated under the 1st QM Group in Normandy.
Controversy over control of these units had undoubtedly been one source of friction between Whitney and Judd, but the real issue was more basic. Judd felt that his base section graves registration officer had been shunted aside by Whitney, and had had no opportunity to prepare himself for the very considerable responsibility now suddenly thrust upon him. Whitney found Judd lacking in understanding of the basic graves registration mission, and was particularly incensed that the group’s very detailed records of operations in Normandy were retained by the Normandy Base Section instead of being forwarded to the OCQM in Paris. On the other hand, it was only natural that an officer who considered himself ill-prepared for his duties should insist on retaining all available records that might be helpful. The problem appears to have been one more instance of conflict between technical and territorial channels of control, resembling several narrated earlier. Littlejohn admitted that, since the chiefs of his graves registration field crews were normally senior to base section graves registration officers, it was proper to make special arrangements regarding command in each case. In this instance repeated changes in base section commanders and in chiefs of the Graves Registration Division at OCQM had contributed to the misunderstanding. Undoubtedly this episode reinforced Littlejohn’s conviction that, in the post-hostilities period, successful completion of the graves registration mission would require an autonomous theater level
graves registration command, independent of the base section commanders.18
In the routine of taking over army cemeteries, ADSEC’s graves registration personnel established a regular procedure for maintenance. The graves registration platoon attached to a burial site first undertook an inventory of the graves, checked it against the cemetery’s records, and sent a copy of the inventory to the OCQM. Since the armies had no time to begin a beautification program, ADSEC initiated measures in this direction. OCQM directives provided that roads had to be laid out, fences were to be constructed around the grounds, and temporary peg-type grave markers were to be replaced by crosses or Stars of David as soon as possible. Then, if there was time, individual plots were to be mounded to allow for sinkage, and plans were to be made for landscaping.19
Proper cemetery maintenance was always difficult, and hampered as much by the weather as by the combat situation. At Marigny, where most of the casualties of the battle for St. Lô had been hastily buried, the identification of exhumed bodies was handicapped by decomposition. Heavy rains filled open graves, and the 1st QM Group had to improvise a drainpipe system by joining together open-ended fifty-gallon drums. During an inspection trip through Normandy in mid-October, Littlejohn learned that
crosses should stick into the ground at least two feet so they would remain upright even in mud. He directed that the specifications for wooden crosses be amended and that all local procurement contracts be changed to provide extra length.20 At Margraten, rains transformed the site into a mire that trapped road-building equipment and swallowed the gravel and rocks that had been deposited to form a roadbed. Finally, a corduroy road of logs had to be constructed to permit the resumption of cemeterial activities in this area of “water-filled graves, dirty crosses, and mud-soaked men.”21
Late in 1944, ADSEC’s graves registration activities encountered two special situations which illustrated the continual need for adaptability among military units. When ADSEC divided its installations between ADSEC North at Liège and ADSEC South at Verdun, support for a large number of military hospitals was similarly divided. Initially, each hospital in the northern area had to evacuate its own dead to Fosse Cemetery, some sixty miles to the rear. This put an intolerable strain on Medical Corps transportation, and General Hawley appealed personally to Littlejohn. The Chief Quartermaster pointed out that medical installations, like combat units, were entitled to graves registration evacuation service from a central collecting point. Before the end of January, ADSEC had established one collecting point for Liège and another for Verdun, and a daily delivery to the
cemeteries was made from each. A few weeks later, the sudden German counterattack aimed at Liège converted ADSEC’s graves registration units into combat area collecting teams, just as ADSEC’s supply depots suddenly were called upon to serve as forward distribution points to the defending divisions. The northern nose of the salient was divided into subsections with collecting points at Liège, Fosse, and Marche. Contrary to the usual procedure of collecting points evacuating to the cemeteries, these collecting teams devoted all their efforts to a sweeping operation, while the cemeteries sent vehicles forward to gather the bodies and return them for burial. This activity continued after the German attack was repulsed, and to support it ADSEC opened a cemetery of its own on 8 February at Neuville-en-Condroz near Liège. Thereafter, remains from the hospitals in the northern ADSEC area were also evacuated to that site.22
The resumption of the eastward advance dictated that ADSEC cemeteries be relinquished, and they fell directly under quartermaster base depots, which frequently complained that ADSEC had accomplished little and that a great deal of work still had to be done. For example, Andilly and Limey were taken over in February by the 73rd QM Base Depot, after being under ADSEC’s jurisdiction for two months, but they were still in poor condition. Local civilians were fully employed on the farms, and while prisoner labor was available at several neighboring depots, the graves registration units had neither transportation to bring POW’s daily to the cemeteries nor guards to maintain their own prison camps. The base depot called for engineers to install an extensive drainage system, and for service troops to supervise prisoners of war and Italian service personnel who would be employed to align and paint crosses, improve roads and paths, seed plots to grass, and plant shrubbery. These needs were met by moving forward graves registration units from Normandy, as noted above. Wartime beautification activities culminated on Memorial Day, 1945. Special attention was given to making the burial sites as presentable as possible for the military ceremonies which took place at each cemetery that day. The OCQM provided a printed paper flag for each grave, and was able to supply cloth flags at several large cemeteries on 27 May.23
Meanwhile, investigation teams, usually composed of several Americans and an interpreter, extended the search for isolated burials and unburied remains. To assure that none of these was moved until all possible evidence necessary for identification had been obtained, it became the established policy that no isolated body could be removed until the case was reviewed and permission to disinter was granted by the OCQM.24 The Service des Sepultures Militaires, a French organization corresponding to the American Battle Monuments Commission, provided a great deal of useful information for identification purposes. The graves registration program was
also considerably aided in identifying isolated burials by local residents, especially farmers and members of the organized underground movement. Such unofficial assistance frequently shed light on the date and circumstances of the death, and corroborative evidence was occasionally found in the records of the local town hall or police station.25
For all of the improvisation in the interim, the cemeterial program by the end of hostilities bore a reasonable resemblance to the one conceived before D-day. Not the least of these goals, it will be recalled, was to concentrate burials in as few cemeteries as possible. That this plan was successfully realized is illustrated by the fact that in World War I, 75,000 casualties were interred in more than 2,000 scattered burial areas, while in World War II, amidst highly mobile and widespread tactical operations, only 54 cemeteries were used for more than 117,000 U.S. casualties.26
Personal Effects
Return of effects to the relatives of men who die in battle has been a responsibility of U.S. commanders since 1776. In an overseas theater such return involves collecting, processing, and temporary storage of personal belongings, all of which have long been Quartermaster functions. The QM Lost Baggage and Effects Depot, established at St. Nazaire, France, in March 1918, was an earlier example of this logical combination of closely allied functions. On 23 September 1942 the QM depot in London, Q-110, was designated to fulfill precisely the same purposes. The depot commander was appointed a summary court-martial, and was thereby authorized to open sealed packages and to perform various other fiduciary duties. Officials of the United Kingdom gave prompt assurance that effects of American personnel would be exempt from taxation, but estates had to be settled in accordance with British law. This provided that articles of primarily sentimental value could be released immediately, but monetary assets had to be held in the country for six months to satisfy possible claims. Soldiers missing in action, mostly aviators, were considered alive for a six-months period, and thereafter their assets were held for another six months, as those of other deceased persons. On 19 January 1943, Maj. Abraham Meisel was appointed theater effects quartermaster and assumed functions previously fulfilled by the commanding officer of Depot Q-110. In November 1943 the waiting period for persons missing in action was reduced to two months before presumption of death, and the period to satisfy local claims after death was likewise shortened to two months. This change represented a British concession to policies considered desirable by the OCQM. The same policies, with very minor adjustments, were followed on the Continent.27
Meanwhile personal belongings other than cash assets were creating problems of an entirely different kind. Small items that might be sent to the Army effects quartermaster in Kansas City by parcel post caused no difficulty, but bulky articles that could not be shipped in accordance with current transportation policy created a dilemma. Article of War 112, designed to protect the heirs of the deceased, permitted sale of effects only if no heirs could be found. The effects depot, at Liverpool since May 1943, was already overcrowded, but neither the theater effects quartermaster nor the theater adjutant general was willing to assume responsibility for action contrary to the Articles of War, despite the pressing problems involved. The Adjutant General in Washington was equally cautious, suggesting that permission of the heirs should be secured before any sale. When no action had been taken by midsummer of 1944, the assistant adjutant general of the 2nd Bombardment Division, Eighth Air Force, registered a complaint. His unit was being almost overrun by a multitude of automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles, carts, and even horses and dogs. Surely authority could be given to sell these effects. The commanding generals of the Eighth Air Force and United States Strategic Air Forces were in agreement, and the effects quartermaster was willing to comply, but only if authorized by a theater directive. Meanwhile Littlejohn, having received informal assurance of moral support from Lt. Col. John R. Murphy, the Army effects quartermaster in Kansas City, decided to adopt a more practical interpretation of existing regulations. He directed that Colonel Whitney, who had become chief of a combined Graves Registration and Effects Division in March 1944, arrange for sale of the bulky items and transmit the proceeds to Colonel Murphy. The new procedure was regularized by War Department Circular 85 of 16 March 1945, which restricted the authority to sell effects to duly authorized representatives of the theater commander.28
One expedient in First Army’s efforts to reduce the load carried by soldiers in the Normandy landings was to require that all individuals, when alerted for the attack, send their personal effects to the Liverpool depot, packed in regulation boxes provided for that purpose. In January 1944 the Plans and Training Division, OCQM, recommended requisitioning 500,000 boxes, size 4 x 8 x 12 inches, for this purpose. In April, Boughton and Sudbury, two general depots in the Midlands, were designated as temporary effects depots to supplement Liverpool, since the assault troops were expected to turn in from 400 to Soo carloads of effects and baggage per week. The effects quartermaster estimated that he would require over 442,000 square feet of covered storage space by D plus 60.29
During the initial phase on the Continent, effects collecting points were operated as branches of Class II and IV QM depots, and evacuated all effects to Liverpool. The Effects Quartermaster, Continent, began to operate on 13 July as a branch of the 64th QM Base Depot at Isigny. This unit immediately began processing effects for direct transmission to the United States, but collections
speedily outran evacuation. By late August 7,000 square feet at Isigny and 56,000 square feet at Cherbourg were in use, and plans were made to acquire 25,000 more at Le Mans. On 25 September the Personal Effects and Baggage Depot in Paris was opened at Depot Q-177A, and thereafter all effects and lost baggage on the Continent were forwarded to that point. Collecting points in the combat zone evacuated to dumps designated by ADSEC; the latter and the base sections sent effects to Paris by mail if possible, otherwise under armed guard. Despite repeated prodding by Littlejohn, effects operations were not moved forward to Reims until mid-December, although the depot had officially moved there on 20 November. Colonel Ramsey, former chief of the Graves Registration and Effects Division in the United Kingdom, became effects quartermaster in December. Littlejohn had expressed his dissatisfaction with Ram-sey’s predecessor in the following terms:
It looks as though my whole Graves Registration and Effects Division is entrenched behind the ramparts of Paris, sitting on its fanny smoking big cigars and dreaming about something which may or may not happen. ... Last week we had the Inspector General in on this project. I found the Effects Depot still in Paris, after I had ordered it to move weeks ago.30
Although Ramsey did an able job of reorganizing the effects depot, apparently the armies had grown accustomed in the interim to operating without such an installation. On 11 December, having examined the procedures current in the forward areas, the Chief Quartermaster demanded of his personnel officer: “Why do we need an effects depot at all if everything is shipped direct from the battlefield to Kansas City?”31 Actually only the positively identified effects of personnel definitely known to be deceased could be handled in that fashion. A depot close behind the front was absolutely essential to hold the personal belongings of those missing in action, of those in hospitals, and an ever-increasing backlog of unclaimed and unidentified baggage. Since Q-256, the salvage depot at Reims, was overcrowded, an independent QM effects depot, Q-290, was opened at Folembray on 29 January 1945. Here in a former glass factory were 150,000 square feet of covered storage and billets for 20 officers and 185 enlisted men, the entire military complement of the installation.32
A major cause of difficulty in processing effects was the fact that all of an enlisted man’s clothing was government property, and because of clothing shortages in the theater extra clothing not on his person had to be salvaged for reuse. An officer’s clothing, apart from certain special-purpose articles, was assumed to be his personal property. The baggage of both officers and men often contained miscellaneous items of organizational equipment urgently needed in the theater, especially mess gear, shelter halves, intrenching tools, and webbing articles. The duffel bags of equipment left behind in Normandy by many units have already been mentioned as a problem
with regard to delivery of winter clothing to the combat troops. They posed an almost equal problem to effects quartermasters, since in some units nearly half of the original owners had become casualties—either dead or hospitalized. This was realized only after several large shipments of such bags had arrived in the combat zone, where many could not be delivered to their owners. On 5 December the Chief Quartermaster informed the quartermasters of the First, Third, and Ninth Armies that the OCQM would provide transportation to take all such bags to the recently opened effects depot at Reims for processing, classification, and salvage.33
A great variety of personal articles had been found in the pockets, duffel bags, and footlockers of American casualties. While unit graves registration officers usually removed food, candy, toilet supplies, and any items that might cause embarrassment to the next of kin, the application of this policy was carefully checked along the line of evacuation. Such items as money, fountain pens, cameras, watches, jewelry, books, paintings, photos, wine, and medals, among others, were sent rearward by the combat units to army Class II and IV depots, and in turn passed back to ADSEC effects collecting points. The 62nd Quartermaster Base Depot at Verdun, for example, handled 155 truckloads of such items from 1 November to 30 June, principally from Third Army, but also from adjacent hospitals. Here the effects were received and recorded before they were delivered to the effects quartermaster at Reims, and later at Folembray. Personal property that belonged with a body already identified—and this was the more typical case—was evacuated with the minimum possible delay to the zone of interior. That belonging to persons whose death was not definitely established, on the other hand, was held in the communications zone for sixty days before shipment to the United States. Effects that might aid in identifying bodies were usually held at cemeteries. In executing this responsibility, as in the care of cemeteries, special effort was taken to assure proper handling. For example, after experience had proved that watches and fountain pens were often broken when cloth effects pouches were shipped to the United States in mail sacks, boxes were provided to protect fragile articles. Extra precaution was taken to prevent pilferage from the warehouses, packages were always transferred under special guard, and the backgrounds of civilians employed in this activity were carefully checked for honesty.34
The American Graves Registration Command
At the end of hostilities in Europe, plans had already been made to wind up most Quartermaster activities in the Allied countries. Many combat and service troops and a large part of the theater supplies had already been moved
forward into Germany and Austria. Plans to dispose of remaining supplies and close down service installations were well advanced. Graves registration was by far the largest item of unfinished Quartermaster business within the liberated countries. No formal policy decisions had yet been made, but a strong popular sentiment dictated that this activity could not be transferred to enemy territory. It would have to be brought to completion where it had begun, either by repatriation of war dead or by the establishment of permanent cemeteries in Allied countries. It was therefore clear that whatever organization inherited these responsibilities would have to become largely self-sufficient when the base sections were inactivated and the various U.S. headquarters were moved into Germany.35
Littlejohn had foreseen many of these problems, and it could be said that the organization of the 1st QM Group, to operate in the quiescent rear areas of COMZ, had been a modest step toward their solution. On 7 June 1945 Littlejohn discussed the matter in detail with General Eisenhower, who stated he was willing to release control of graves registration operations in the theater to The Quartermaster General, provided the personnel appointed to direct this function met with his approval. The Supreme Commander confirmed that no permanent cemeteries were to be established on enemy soil, and directed that first priority be given to evacuating U.S. dead from those areas in Germany and Austria which were shortly to come under French, British, or Russian control. He further suggested that all bodies be concentrated at Henri-Chapelle and one cemetery in Normandy, but Littlejohn questioned the advisability of this. The Chief Quartermaster prophesied that Congress would soon act to authorize return of the dead to the United States, which would involve moving bodies twice.36
Eisenhower and Bradley concurred in the appointment of Brig. Gen. James W. Younger, the former QM, 12th Army Group, and on 18 June, as an interim measure, the latter was made chief of the Graves Registration and Effects Division, OCQM. On 2 August, Younger became Director General, U.S. Theater Graves Registration Service, Theater Service Forces, European Theater, while remaining a member of Littlejohn’s staff. The mission, authority, and troop basis of this new headquarters were rather ill-defined, and likely to remain so, since the high level command structure of the theater was undergoing evolution and all personnel planning was nullified again and again by sweeping demobilization directives from Washington. For example, late in August Gregory warned Littlejohn that the new headquarters would be expanded to administer graves registration activities in the Mediterranean and Middle East theaters, and plans were made calling for a strength of nearly 7,000 men, organized into 267 QM units. By contrast, the units
actually assigned at the time—three group headquarters, four battalion headquarters, and fifteen graves registration companies—had an authorized strength of about 2,000. But they actually mustered less than half that number, and most of those remaining were eligible for redeployment under the point system. Even more serious was the fact that few of the officers and men remaining with the units were experienced and technically qualified. Striving to overcome these handicaps in the ETO, Younger largely ignored his potential responsibilities in the Mediterranean and concentrated on setting up a five-zone territorial organization, mainly to care for the cemeteries on the Continent and in the United Kingdom. Littlejohn became Commanding General, American Graves Registration Command, on 1 October, and attempted with little success to organize five field commands which would undertake a systematic combing of battle terrain in Europe, the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Middle East. General Younger assumed command of one such field unit at Fulda, Germany, in October to conduct a sweep of Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, but none of the others were activated. Doubtless it was a relief when on 11 December General Lee decided that the scheme conceived in Washington was impracticable, and that graves registration activities in the three theaters were not to be combined.
Littlejohn retained Younger’s organization of five cemeterial zones, redesignating them as sectors and placing them under the supervision of Colonel Talbot, chief of the Cemetery Plant Division, American Graves Registration Command. They were geographically identical with existing base sections, so their logistical support presented few problems. But efforts to organize mobile units to locate and concentrate the dead ran into endless difficulties. On paper, a second field command was established at Brussels on 15 November, but for many weeks it was simply an office with a few officers and civilians and no subordinate units whatever. At this juncture Littlejohn decided that his dual role was prejudicial to efficient performance in either sphere of action, and asked that he be relieved as theater Chief Quartermaster.37 Colonel Odell was appointed to that post on 24 November 1945, and Littlejohn was able to give undivided attention to the organizational structure and manpower problems of the American Graves Registration Command. No permanent and satisfactory solution to the problem of lack of trained manpower was ever found, but by early January 1946 the Graves Registration Command was assured that 7,244 officers and men, about evenly divided between green recruits and transfers from the antiaircraft artillery, would be available until 1 July 1946. Thereafter its strength was to be reduced to 2,500. To provide for the long-range requirements of this force, depots were taken over by the command at Isle St. Germain and Fontainebleau, and requisitions were made upon surplus theater
stocks of clothing, accommodation stores, office supplies, equipment, and motor vehicles. Under pressure from Congress, which reflected the impatience of the American people, the OQMG had conceived a hasty plan to comb all battle areas during the first half of 1946, and to complete the entire project in two years. But Littlejohn insisted that requisitions should be based upon requirements for a five-year period and shaped his storage policy accordingly. He doubted that even a very large labor force could operate effectively without intensive training, for which no facilities had been prepared. Even his estimate of the time required proved to be somewhat overoptimistic.
By March 1946, when Littlejohn turned over command to Colonel Odell and departed for the United States, the dimensions of the task facing the American Graves Registration Command were fairly clear, although decisions on how it was to be performed were still lacking. On V-E Day approximately 117,000 Americans were buried in fifty-four temporary cemeteries. Eleven months later the number of cemeteries had been reduced to thirty-six, and it was estimated that recoveries would bring the total number of burials to over 148,000. A decision had been made in principle that next of kin might decide whether their dead were to be repatriated or were to remain overseas, but the information upon which to base a poll of relatives was not yet available. There were sharp differences of opinion as to what the results
of such a poll might be, which in turn influenced opinions on the number of burial sites that should be retained as permanent cemeteries. The final result was that some 41 percent of the 146,000 bodies ultimately recovered remained in the ETO, and the ten sites proposed by the Graves Registration Command in April 1946 became the cemeteries approved by Congress in August 1947.38
In the postwar Graves Registration Command, it was generally agreed that some of the mistakes, omissions, and oversights committed in graves registration activities during combat were clearly unavoidable, but others were not. Whether avoidable or not, an exhaustive effort was made later to resolve every discrepancy that arose, and a large postwar organization devoted nearly six years to that activity. Repatriation of the dead and establishment of permanent overseas cemeteries were not wartime activities, but they offer valuable lessons to combat graves registration officers. It is most important to remember that no action regarding graves registration matters taken in wartime is final, and that every wartime decision, no matter how trivial, will be subject to later scrutiny.