Historical note
The area was liberated
by the 5th US Tank Division on 10th December 1944. This cemetery was
established on 29 December 1944 by the U.S. Third Army under General
George S. Patton, Jr., as a temporary burial ground for soldiers killed
in the fighting in the Ardennes hills north of here. Ten days earlier,
Third Army units rapidly swung north from positions in Germany’s
Saarland after Adolf Hitler launched his vast counter-offensive with
half a million troops that broke through U.S. First Army lines in the
Ardennes. Three of Patton’s divisions attacked the southern flank
of the German penetration on 22 December, a week before the first burials
took place here. The fierce winter engagement came to known as the
Battle of the Bulge.
As the fighting raged 30 miles to the north, a service detachment of
the Third Army prepared the grounds in this forest glade and built simple
wooden structures and primitive dirt roads, while labor troops performed
the burials. A staff of American and Luxembourg clerks were installed
in the school building at nearby Hamm to handle records.
Gen. Patton himself was buried here on Christmas Eve 1945, three days
after he died in Heidelberg, Germany, as a result of a neck fracture
suffered in a accident. His original grave was in an area now designated
as Plot F.
During 1946, American labor troops aided by German prisoners of war built
a chapel, an office building and other structures, and laid stone pathways
among the 28 plots of graves then in existence, which contained the remains
of 8.412 soldiers.
Over 200.000 people visited the American cemetery in 1946, and virtually
all of them went to see Gen. Patton’s grave (he died on 21st December
1945 at the age of 60 due to complications from a car accident). It was
then decided to move his remains to a more convenient location at
the
top
of the burial
plots to accomodate the steady flow of visitors. The move was completed
during March 1947, and the general’s
grave was not touched by the subsequent reconstruction of the cemetery
according to a new design.
In March 1948, the cemetery was closed to visitors and screened with
tarpaulins around ist entire perimeter, and 250 local laborerswere hired
to perform the exhumations of all remains in preparation for casketing
and the repatriation of those whose families had chosen to rebury them
in the United States. Over the next year and a half the cemetery was
completely rebuilt. All the remains were prepared by morticians after
final positive identification and were laid in 500-pound, bronze-finished
coffins. About 5.050 of the dead were then trucked to Antwerp for shipping
to the United States. The others were buried in trenches shaped in concentric
arcs according to the new design of the cemetery. An additional 1.700
American dead who had hitherto lain in the temporary burial ground of
Grand Failly near Longuyon in France were reburied here, bringing the
total to 5.076. All but 101 of an original number of 267 unknown soldiers
were positively identified at this time.
Among those buried here, there are 118 soldiers of the Jewish faith,
whose headstones are in the shape of a Star of David, 22 pairs of brothers
and one pair of close friends buried side by side at the request of their
families, and one woman, an Army nurse.
The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), an agency under the
Executive Branch of the U.S. Government founded by an Act of Congress
in 1923, took over control of the Luxembourg American Cemetery from the
AGRC in December 1949. The cemetery was reopened to visitors but development
of the grounds continued and new plans were made for the construction
of the present terrace area, chapel, visitors’ building, entrance
gates, and the asphalted pathways with the pools.
General George C. Marshall was chairman of ABMC at the time. A traity
was signed on 20 March 1951 by Madame Perle Mesta, U.S. Minister to Luxembourg,
Foreign Minister Joseph Bech, giving the United
States Government the perpetual right to use the 50,5
acres of land taken up by the cemetery. The Luxembourg Government had
offered outright title
to the land but this woud have raised a problem of extraterritoriality,
wich the United States considered undesirable. The government of the
Grand Duchy provided the property to the United States for use as a cemetery
without taxation. The government later donated a parking lot.
All of the present structures of the cemetery were built during the 1950s
based on plans prepared by architects Keally and Patterson of New York
and several other American firmes. During this time, the original wooden
markers on the graves were replaced by new, white marble headstones were
cemented onto beams that run for more than six miles under the manicured
lawn of the grave plots.
The completed grounds and Memorial were dedicated on 4 July 1960 in a
ceremony attended by the late Grand-Duchess Charlotte and her consort,
Prince Felix of Luxembourg. On this occasion, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
issued a message stating in part: "On this anniversary of America’s
Independence Day, I join you in paying proud tribute to the men who sleep
in the Luxembourg cemetery, our comrades-in-arms in the crusade against
tyranny. These died that people might live in freedom and peace. Now
they rest forever in the soil of the friendly country which so many of
them helped to free from the invader."
In the decades since the dedication of the Luxembourg American Cemetery
and Memorial many distinguished visitors have been received, including
all members of the Luxembourg royal family, and two vice presidents of
the United States who later became president: Lyndon B. Johnson in 1963
and George W. Bush in 1984.
Over 150.000 people visit the cemetery every year, including about 70.000
Americans.
At present, the permanent cemetery staff consists of two Americans and
10 local national employees.
Chapel's entrance
. Here are buried 5.076 of American military
Dead. There are 267 unknown burials and 371 Missings commemorated (on
two great wall on the terrace, those men whose remains were never found
or identified,
came from 42 states and the Disctrict of Columbia).
