An interesting read. Thanks Papa Art!
This narrative relates some of my personal experiences as a sergeant squad leader in the 603rd Quartermaster Graves Registration Company in the first days of the Allied invasion at Normandy, France, in June 1944. As a squad leader in the 4th Platoon, I decided it would be a good idea to have someone accompany the glider elements of the 82d Airborne Division on D-Day. My name was submitted as the "volunteer" to make the first U.S. Army Quartermaster graves registration combat airborne landing.
This narrative also details how a cemetery was established near a village called Blosville about three miles south of Ste. Mere Eglise, an area with crashed gliders strewn everywhere and hundreds of parachutes hanging from hedges, trees and houses. The Blosville Cemetery was one of six American cemeteries established in a radius of about 20 miles. This was due in part to the overall lack of ground communication between the attacking elements. Graves registration services were plentiful. At the outset, the Blosville Cemetery was intended to be temporary and primarily serve the 82nd Airborne Division. By the time the St. Lo breakout took place and Allied forces moved east into central France, this cemetery contained over 6,000 Allied graves.
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