The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-05-30
$4,000 YANKS
LIE BURIED IN
FRENCH GRAVES
Great Military Cemetery in
Heart of Kriemhilde Line is
Opened Today.
BY FRANK II. siMoNDs.
Copyright, 1919, by the Mcclure

Newspaper Syndicate.)
PARIS, May 30.-Decoration day
for Americans in Europe this year
will have new meaning. More than
$4,000 Of our soldiers are buried on
French batflefields. Perhaps no de-
tail in American activities since the
war will more commend itself to the
American people than the care and
thought that have been expended In
the direction OF American cemeteries
In France. On Decoration day the
greatest military cemetery, SO far as
our own country Is concerned, will
be opened in the heart of the Kriem-
hide line at the village OF Romagne,
memorable for the many divisions
that fought in the Meuse-Argonne
battle. A cemetery where $4,000
Americans will be buried, is to be
dedicated.
Army Concentrates Dead.
For many months thousands of
men have been engaged in preparing
this cemetery. In the great Meuse-
Argonne battle, fought over an area
of nearly a thousand square miles,
nearly 10000 Americans were killed
or subsequently died of wounds. They
were buried hastily on the field of
honor, and one may still find scat
tered all over this country American
garves. Going the other day from
Stenay- to Narennes, across many
miles of American front, saw
scores and scores of these scattered
graves. one of the clear evidences of
our victory and of our sacrifice.
After the fighting, the army adopt
ed the wise policy of concentrating
70 in
tions were made for gathering all
Americans who had fallen over the
really vast area between the Argonne
and the Meuse Within few months
the task will be completed and
pleasant hillside on the ground that
was won, and in the midst of what
was for America the greatest battle
in her history, $4,000 soldiers will
be buried. "A % al ~
On Old Hindenburg Line.
But this is only one of the Amer
lean cemeteries. l visited another in
the center of the Hindenburg line,
: where are buried men of the 9th and
Both divisions, who with the British
and the Australians shared honorably
in the glorious success of September
2g, when the Hindenburg line was
broken, in no small part by the
courage and devotion of the 9th and
Both divisions. This cemetery, which
will contain 1900 bodies, the price
to us of this victory, is east of Per-
onne, not far from the ruined town
of La Catelet, and the destroyed vii
lage of Bonry. 81 =
There remain two other fields where
American soldiers fought and died In
considerable numbers, that Of the
Chateau-Thierry fighting and of the st.
Mihiel salient. Nearly 10000 Ameri-
can soldiers are buried in many small
cemeteries all the way from Chateau
Thierry to Fismes. Around Belleau
Woods alone are at least six clear evil
dences of how desperate was the bat
tie and how great the cost of victory.
Each of these little cemeteries Is ad-
mirably kept, individual graves are
marked with wooden crosses and are
fenced. At Seringes, memorable with
Cierges and Sergy for some OF the
most desperate fighting in the Chateau
Thierry time, is another large Amer1-
can cemetery, and in the same way
American graveyards are scattered
over the st. Mihiel salient.
other Central Cemeteries.
Decoration day, Romagne cemetery
French inhabitants in many adjoining
villages, the graves of the American
soldiers in all the various battlefelds
are to be decorated. At later time
believe the dead who fell in the st
Mihiel and Chateau hierry salient are
to be gathered in two central GENE
teries, like that of Romagne.
In making the cemetery at Romagne
the work has included not merely the
moving of $4,000 bodies, but also thu
task of identifying many hastily bur
led where they fell in the press oil
battle.
Almost without exception, thanks t.
the devotion of the officers engaged il
the task, Identification has been made
and for all the future the graves Of
these men will be marked.
Romagne cemetery in the future
like those in ST. Mihiel and in Chatea,
Thierry will be in place of American
pilgrimages. Today, one can reacf
these American cemeteries only b,
car, but in all areas where American
soldiers fought and fell American
units are stationed and are workin,
carefully and successfully. Neither tn
French nor the British, in the main
because of the greatness of their tasl
by comparison, have been able L
spare men for the making their grave
yards and SO the care Of the graves
of the soldiers who fell had In yer.
large degree fallen on the people o
the region in which the fighting oc
CURED, and all over France, no mat
ter how devastated the region, on,
will find American, British and French
graves cared for with equal tender
ness by the people of the countryside
Every Grave Remembered.
1t is the plan and hope of American
in France that no grave of an Amer
can soldier will remain undecorate'
this Memorial day. Thanks to tn
French neasants this result will prof