Repatriation

Four men, a pair on two different B-17s in World War II, interred in four different National Cemeteries. Each man has a different story, but tied together in a fateful crash on June 21, 1944 over Germany. While these crew members of the famed Flying Fortress aircraft were lost, their journey only began as the U.S. government sought to find their remains, and return them to American soil for their rightful burial in a national cemetery.

Graves of unknown soldiers in the national cemeteries are commonplace and marked in many different ways. While the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Army’s Arlington National Cemetery is the most culturally recognizable unknown grave, VA national cemeteries also have less grand examples of unknown burials that span the early 19th century through the Korean War. The most common form of unknown marker, however, is the simple 6x6-inch stone that adorns the graves of thousands of Civil War soldiers.

The U.S. Army’s plan for the recovery of Union dead across the South after the Civil War came about through the labors of a remarkable if little known officer, Edmund Whitman. He spent four years overseeing the collection of thousands of remains and creating “mortuary records” of reburials in new national cemeteries. After completing his “Harvest of Death,” to use his phrase, he produced in 1869 an extraordinary report that recounted the breadth, sequence, and challenges of his reinternment mission.

More than 4.7 million Americans served in the U.S. armed forces in World War I and almost all became eligible after the war for burial in a national cemetery or to receive a government headstone in a private cemetery.

National cemeteries played a role in the repatriation process for servicemembers who died outside of the United States during the two world wars.

This National Cemetery Administration (NCA) publication is the first in a series on topics related to World War II. For the VA History Office's first Memorial Day features post, take time to learn NCA's efforts to memorialize the men and women who served in that epic conflict and who now rest in cemeteries managed by VA.