State Regent Sandy Swallow’s spring newsletter to Maine Daughters of the American Revolution included an item about a U.S. military cemetery in the Netherlands. Families living nearby have taken to heart the 8,301 American war dead buried there and decorate each grave on special days.
The Netherlands American Cemetery is located in Margraten, where memorial services are held each Liberation Day in memory of those who died to liberate Holland. An annual concert features “Il Silenzio,” a piece written specially for the occasion.
I first heard about Margraten from Galen Cole, who has been there to honor five comrades from his 5th Armored Division. Cole became close friends with Henk Dideriks, who tends those graves, and went on to become involved with the military cemetery in Hamm, Luxembourg, the tiny country that 5th Armored liberated during World War II.
Cole and Constant Goergen of Luxembourg formed the U.S. Veterans Friends Luxembourg, which drew more than 1,400 members and staged celebrations in September 1994 for the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Luxembourg. Members also have come to Bangor for activities here — and they still tend the graves of the 5,076 American war dead buried at Hamm.
The guardian of our overseas military cemeteries and memorials is the American Battle Monuments Commission, established by Congress in 1923 to build and maintain cemeteries, markers and memorials where American forces have served since 1917. Most are in foreign countries, but the American Battle Monuments Commission also erected the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Few of us will have the opportunity to visit Hamm or Margraten, but the American Battle Monuments Commission has a wonderful website at abmc.gov. Under “About Us,” click on “History,” then on “ABMC Commemorative Sites Booklet” to see a picture of each cemetery and read about the site — and about walls of honor listing those who are missing in action.
The website includes a database listing individually the 207,000 who are buried in these cemeteries or missing in action. Search the database by clicking on “Search ABMC Burials.” I looked up William D. Golladay, one of Galen Cole’s comrades. Golladay served in the Army as a private first class in World War II. His cemetery is listed as Netherlands.
It is moving to be able to look up an individual, but I also look to databases to tell me more. I don’t know the names of all those buried or listed as missing at these cemeteries, and I want to know how many Mainers are interred or named on the tablets of the missing.
The database can tell me that. Without entering a name I can specify World War II and list Maine as the state from which any of those included had entered the service. The database searches its information and displays a listing of 1,045 Mainers who died in World War II and are buried or memorialized at these sites. I click on Lawrence J. Arsenault’s name and find that he was a private first class in the Army and is buried in the largest American Battle Monuments Commission site, Manila Cemetery in the Philippines.
There are 17,201 Americans buried at Manila, most of whom were in battle in New Guinea and the Philippines. The tablets listing the missing in action has 36,285 names on it, more than the population of Bangor.
On May 24, several of the U.S. military cemeteries were scheduled to hold memorial services and decorate graves. A documentary on the cemetery at Henri-Chapelle in France aired on cable television several times this past year, including interviews those who not only tend graves but may maintain contact with some of the family members. These caring people are not all elderly people who remember World War II, but are of a variety of ages. They learn in school how fortunate they are that Allied Forces — including Americans — gave so much for their freedom. And they are grateful.
Because most wars have been fought “over there,” it takes more effort to maintain gratitude for our freedoms, and to make sure our children grow up with that gratitude and patriotism.
More than 444,000 Americans died during World War II, and more than 172,000 of those are buried in U.S. military cemeteries abroad or memorialized there. The American Battle Monuments Commission sites also are the resting places of veterans of World War I, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
Others are buried in local cemeteries abroad, and of course many more are interred here at home. May we remember and honor them all.
And important, do honor our living veterans today, as well. Applaud as veterans from World War II to the Global War on Terror march up Main Street to Davenport Park in Bangor, a parade that will begin at 10:30 a.m. Those with walking sticks may have the 2015 sticker applied by checking in with volunteers on Exchange Street beginning at 9 a.m.
After the parade, you’ll find plenty of veterans to thank for their service at Cole Land Transportation Museum at 405 Perry Road. At noontime, buy yourself lunch items from the Old Town Band Boosters, who are raising money for their music program. Veterans with walking sticks will receive a coupon for a free lunch.
The Old Town High School Band will play patriotic music at noon, and retired Maj. Gen. Nelson Durgin will speak at 1 p.m. Visit the transportation museum for free afterward, including the military display and 5th Armored Division Room.
Adam Fisher of the Maine State Museum will speak to the Washington County Historical & Genealogical Society at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 30, in the Emergency Management Room, 28 Center St., Machias.
For information on researching family history in Maine, see Genealogy Resources under Family Ties at bangordailynews.com/browse/family-ties. Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402, or email familyti@bangordailynews.com.