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“Each headstone represents a story waiting to be told,
This website is dedicated to the men and women of the Allied Armed Forces who died in the Netherlands during World War 2 and/or are buried on Dutch soil. With this website I try to document the lives and wartime careers of every Allied soldier, sailor and airman that was Killed In Action and/or buried in The Netherlands during or just after World War 2. These pages are meant as a tribute to these men who gave their lives for our freedom. When I was young, I had a keen interest in the planes, tanks, weapons, etc. of the war. My friends and I would go out many an afternoon and "reenact" the different battles of the war; Market-Garden, D-Day and the Pacific Island-hopping campaign of the Americans. One day, I suppose to show me that there is a different side to war as well, my parents took me to a Military Cemetery. I remember walking past the rows of graves, reading the names, units and ages of the men buried there. Although men to me, many of them were not much more than a few years my senior when they died. From then on I wanted to know who these men where; what did they look like, were did they come from, what were their hobbies, what were they like and what were their lives like before and during the war. I started corresponding with veterans, who tried to answer my many questions and sending me the stories they had written about the war. I tried to contact families of those who lay buried in my country. I wrote to archives, newspapers, town halls, etc. to try to get to know who these men were. Through this website I want to give a face and a voice to the names on those grave stones and crosses. I want to tell their story so that these men and women will not be forgotten. In 1947, Mrs Edward H. Jones wrote the foreword to Lt.Col. Joseph J. Shomon’s book Crosses In The Wind, about the work of the 611th Graves Registration Company in WW2. In her foreword, Mrs. Jones, widow of Pvt. Edward H. Jones, buried at Margraten, captured the feelings and emotions about why we remember. She also captured my own feelings and emotions, better than I could have done myself. “…The next of kin of our war dead, the country over, are hungry for whatever bit of information they can obtain about the graves of their loved ones, and the care with which these graves are tended. Moreover, they want to learn something of the circumstances that led to the death of the soldiers beneath those white crosses. They want to know if anyone Is taking an interest in that grave which is so far away from them – yet so close to their hearts. The memory that people back home have of the men who died are of their last furloughs, or of some happy event that occurred before the war years. The time spent with the Army, Navy, or the Marine Corps overseas is an unfamiliar chapter to the families who saw sons, husbands, fathers go away – never to return. Yet they want to come closer to the soldier who fought on the battlefront; closer to that grave marked by a white cross... …Major Shomon has brought the crosses closer to us with his account of the decisive battles of the war that led to victory – and to the rows upon rows of crosses in the wind. His inspired ambition to make the cemetery at Margraten, which he and his 611th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company established, a lasting tribute to the men who died in battle, is typical of the feeling I found overseas by all of the personnel in the American Graves Registration Command – from private to commanding officer. Theirs is not and was not a routine job. They have made it a work of respect for their dead comrades, and of understanding of the feelings of the people back home. Summed up in the words of a sergeant I met working at the Margraten cemetery, “ but by the grace of God we’d be lying out there now. There’s not much we can do, but at least we can keep the cemeteries over here the way the folks back home would want them.... …Through such thoughtfulness, the grave of your son or husband buried overseas becomes more than “just another white cross.” Instead, some Dutch family, some French or Belgian girl or boy, is honoring your loved one with flowers and a prayer. They are taking a personal interest in the soldier who is buried in their holy soil – just as you would be doing if that particular grave and cross was near you, near enough so that you could visit it yourself. Mrs. Edward H. Jones " Foreword in Crosses In The Wind by Lt. Col. Joseph James Shomon With this website I hope to preserve the memory and sacrifice of all these men who died for our freedom. |