Building the World War II Memorials, 1945–1960

This chapter looks at the longer aftermath of WWII and traces the creation of the second generation of ABMC sites. Focusing on the process of securing grounds overseas, allowing family members to decide where their loved ones would be buried, and obtaining US government clearance on designs, the account is reminiscent of the start of the ABMC and its first project. By 1960, fourteen cemetery memorials had been dedicated. This chapter also highlights the leadership of the agency’s second chairman, General George C. Marshall, and his direction of the building of memorials in eight countries to remember the 400,000 Americans who had died and the 16 million who had served in WWII. Marshall’s high standing in the US government and in the public esteem, just as was true of Pershing, greatly helped the agency to fulfill its renewed mission. The special treatment shown the grave of General George S. Patton in the Luxembourg American Cemetery is also detailed.

Remembrance Begins, 1919–1923

This chapter looks at the establishment of the ABMC and the history of American cemeteries and monuments in Europe. During the First World War, in a span of about seven months, America left more than 75,000 American soldiers dead in Europe. Torn between bringing the soldiers home and the expense of doing so, the U.S. government allowed the families to decide the fates of their fallen loved ones. Two parties arose from the controversy over whether the fallen soldiers should be brought home or left in American cemeteries abroad. The “Bring Home the Soldier Dead League” wanted the former, and the “Field of Honor Association” wanted the latter. Most of the soldiers’ bodies were shipped home to America, but in 1920-1921, eight permanent cemetery sites were designated in Europe: Suresnes, Romagne, Belleau Wood, Bony, Brookwood, Fère-en-Tardenois, Thiaucourt, and Waregem. In addition to the American cemeteries, it was also decided that American monuments would be erected in Europe. General Pershing emerged as the “chief of national remembrance” for the United States, and the first chairman of the ABMC.

The Agency and Its Mission

The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) was created by an act of Congress in 1923. For more than ninety years the ABMC has been one of the smallest independent federal agencies. This chapter introduces the coming text and that the book will endeavor to show that the commission has been entrusted with one of the nation’s most important tasks: to honor and promote remembrance of the service and the sacrifice of American soldiers in foreign wars and to preserve the sites overseas where tens of thousands of them lie buried.

Reopening the European Office and New Leadership for a Renewed Mission, 1944–1948

This chapter discusses the closing of World War II and the new work the ABMC was directed to accomplish. Existing memorials needed to be restored, and hundreds of thousands of American soldiers needed to be buried in new overseas cemeteries or sent home. A major concern of the ABMC was finance. Many of the local ABMC workers in Europe had continued working, as best they could, during the war and were severely underpaid. There was initially little to no money for employees and the restoration of the monuments and cemeteries. General Robert M. Littlejohn, chief quartermaster for the European Theater of Operations, contributed $100,000 a year of army funds to the ABMC in Belgium and France. An entire new unit was created in the army in order to assist in any way necessary. This chapter also addresses the deaths of General Pershing and the agency’s first consulting architect, Paul Philippe Cret, and introduces their respective successors, George C. Marshall and John Harbeson.

The New Commission Goes to Work, 1923–1938

This chapter gives an overview of the ABMC’s first fifteen years as an official independent federal agency. Adding to the work of the Graves Registration Service and the National Commission of Fine Arts, it beautified the eight European cemeteries, added eleven monuments and two commemorative plaques, formulated polices to regulate against the proliferation of private and non-federal American war memorials in Europe, and built relationships with other federal agencies. As a new agency, the ABMC’s primary job was to begin notifying the public of its existence, and one way of accomplishing that was by securing a permanent office in Europe, which opened in 1924 in Paris. This new base in Europe allowed the ABMC to establish a firmer foothold across the Atlantic and a means to further monitor the work that was being accomplished there.

The ABMC Story Goes On, 1960–Present

This chapter looks at the work the ABMC has been doing since World War II ended. The chairmanships of Generals Jacob Devers and Mark Clark are explored in some detail. Maintenance of the memorials is a mission of remembrance that the ABMC is strongly upholding. Some additional sites have been created since 1960, and “interpretive centers” continue to be added to the World War I and II memorials. Presidential visits to some of the cemeteries since the Carter years have expanded public awareness of these places of memory. The commission directed the construction of the WWII Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., that was dedicated in 2004. This chapter concludes with an assessment of the enduring importance of the work of the ABMC. The WWI veterans have all passed away, and WWII veterans are becoming fewer. The ABMC’s efforts to maintain the beautiful memorials, monuments, and cemeteries keep the many stories, examples learned, and sacrifices continually fresh in the public mind.

The American Battle Monuments Commission and World War II, 1939–1945

This chapter discusses the measures taken in order to secure the safety of the American memorials and the employees who tended them during the Second World War. Concern over the spreading war and growing hardship culminated in the evacuation of all the American employees of the commission, along with their dependents, from France and Belgium in 1941. Surprisingly, the monuments only suffered minor damage during the war. This chapter also highlights the efforts of army captain Charles G. Holle and Colonel T. Bentley Mott, the last two Americans to lead the Paris office of the ABMC before the United States entered the war, to preserve the memorial sites. Mott actually returned to wartime France in 1942 to supervise such efforts directly, and ultimately spent months in German custody. When the Allied armies liberated the ABMC sites in 1944, General Eisenhower sent an extremely joyful cable to Pershing announcing the good condition of the cemeteries and monuments.

The Completion of the ABMC’s Original Mission and Looking toward an Uncertain Future, 1937–1938

This chapter examines the future for the ABMC after the project the agency had been created to do—namely, build and dedicate the eight cemetery chapels and eleven monuments—was completed. Discussing in great detail the planning for the dedication of the memorials in 1937, the chapter points out how the difficulties of that process paled in comparison to the solemn and honorable significance of the project the ABMC had been given. The dedications featured impassioned pleas for peace at a time that war clouds were again appearing in Europe. Once the dedications were finished, the ABMC was able to confound speculation that its termination would follow. This chapter ends with General Pershing surviving a near fatal bout of illness, and the beginning of the next European war that found the newly created monuments in the middle of the coming terror.

Building the American Memorials in Europe, 1925–1933

This chapter discusses the creation of the first generation of ABMC sites. By the end of the 1920s, it had begun work on the erection of monuments in Europe and had hired fourteen architects for the construction of the approved eight chapels and fifteen monuments (only eleven would be completed). This chapter discusses some of the minute decisions that needed to be made before the memorials could be erected, explains many of the controversies that needed to be resolved, and examines the tension that sometimes developed between agency personnel and the architects and artists.