Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial

From USApedia

Template:Infobox military memorial The Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial is a 42-acre (17 ha) World War I cemetery in Belleau, Northern France. It is located at the foot of the hill where the Battle of Belleau Wood was fought, with many American fatalities. The cemetery also contains burials from the Battle of Château-Thierry, later that summer.

The site is maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, and its dedication ceremony was held on Memorial Day, May 30, 1937. Among those buried there are Medal of Honor recipient Weedon Osborne.

The grounds include both the Château-Thierry American Monument and a monument to US Marines.

Cemetery

The cemetery itself is laid out in the form of the capital letter T, with the Memorial Chapel crowning the T-shape on a small hill to south, the cross-bars making up the two burial plots and the pathway leading into the cemetery making up the stem of the letter-shape.

Each of the two burial plots (Plot A and Plot B) contain 13 rows of headstones, which consist of either Stars of David or Latin crosses. There are 2,289 burials in the cemetery, 250 of which contain unknown remains.[1]

Memorial Chapel

The Memorial Chapel is built over the site of front-line battle trenches dug in defense of Belleau Wood. When entering the Memorial Chapel, one can see on the wall to the right a small hole that was made by a passing German anti-tank gun. Looking above the inside entrance door, one will see the following inscription:

THE NAMES RECORDED ON THESE WALLS ARE THOSE OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS WHO FOUGHT IN THIS REGION AND WHO SLEEP IN UNKNOWN GRAVES.

The names of 1,060 soldiers missing in action are inscribed on the Chapel's walls.

Notable burials

Gallery

  • Entrance gate at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, Belleau, France, 1923 (21437641814).jpg

    Entrance gate, 1923

  • 93rd anniversary Battle of BelleauWood.jpg

    U.S. Marines and French soldiers during the 93rd anniversary service of the Battle for Belleau Wood in 2011.

  • Cimetière américain du bois Belleau 4.jpg

See also


References

  1. ↑ Cemetery booklet, ABMC
  2. ↑ Walking in footsteps of WWI Marines
  • Sledge, Michael (2005). Soldier Dead: How We Recover, Identify, Bury, and Honor Our Military Fallen. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 204. ISBN 978-0231509374. OCLC 60527603. 

External links

Public Domain This article incorporates public domain material from Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, American Battle Monuments Commission, http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/am.php  Template:American Battle Monuments Commission Template:World War I War Memorials in France Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 158: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).

Retrieved from ‘https://openusaproject.com/w/index.php?title=Aisne-Marne_American_Cemetery_and_Memorial&oldid=26074’