Editorially speaking..
What a wondrous technological age we live in!
Hardly had last Thursday's Remembrance Day edition of the Cowichan Valley Citizen hit the streets than I had a response to my lengthy history of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)--all the way from Portsmouth, Virginia, U.S.A.
Chris Dickon is the author of two books on the American military, The Foreign Burial of American War Dead and Americans at War in Foreign Forces. He obviously subscribes to a search engine service that ferrets out online references to subjects of interest to him.
In the Citizen I noted that, unlike Commonwealth countries which, since 1917, have buried their war dead in the immediate area of where they were killed (hence the many military cemeteries throughout western European countries), the United States has had a policy of repatriating its military casualties since the Korean War.
But there are the earlier exceptions and Chris tells me that, "right now a couple of American interest groups are developing information and memorials for approx. 500 American[s] buried" in British Commonwealth countries.
In fact, we have approximately 35 burials of American military here in B.C., and he kindly attached a list. As he explained: "The usual breakdown in CWGC graves is 50% American citizens and the rest split between members of pre-war and post-war American immigrant families or widows. This is more likely to apply to WW 1 than to WW 11, in which American citizens more openly entered Canadian forces and many were returned to the US for burial."
To give a brief summary:
Henry Evans, "boy," who's interred in Esquimalt's Veterans Cemetery, and formerly of Spokane, Wash., was serving with the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve when he died of meningitis, Dec. 31, 1917.
There are six graves of American servicemen in Victoria's Ross Bay Cemetery, 1917, 1918 and 1920, ages 25-53. All died of "sickness," mostly unspecified, but this was the time of the infamous Spanish 'Flu epidemic.
Sergeant Joseph Dawson, 22, from Berkeley, Calif., was serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force when he died, May 9, 1941. He's interred in Saanich's Royal Oak Burial Park.
There are 26 burials in Vancouver's Mountain View Cemetery, aged 19-57. In 12 cases death was given as pneumonia and phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis); again, I suspect the Spanish 'Flu.
Flight Lieut. James Pyle Jesse, 22, of Lebanon, Virginia who died Sept. 15, 1946, takes his rest in Burnaby's Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
Thank you, Chris Dickon.
He was followed, just hours later, by Tony the Prof Bellows, a resident of the Isle of Jersey in the Channel Islands, which was occupied by the Germans during the Second World War. He wanted to point out that my information re: German military dead interred in the cemetery at his own church, St. Brelade's, was outdated.
My online source had told me: "Germany also has a dedicated cemetery for sailors at St. Brelades Church..."
Tony: "You are incorrect about the St. Brelade's Church burials," and directed me to http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2017/01/st-brelade-in-1953.html. "They were exhumed and reburied in France; kind regards, Tony Bellows."
In 1961 221 bodies of German naval personnel from both world wars were exhumed and re-interred in France. Prior to their removal a visitor described the cemetery: "...Adjacent to the churchyard is an extension filled with [200] white wooden crosses. These, we found, to be the graves of German soldiers, members of the occupation Forces who died during the last war.
"It seems that the Germans, finding in 1942 the graves of six German military prisoners of the First World War in this part of the churchyard, commandeered the remainder of space as a military cemetery.
"The six original graves were conspicuous as having the customary marble headstones. More conspicuous still was the large wooden replica of the Iron Cross under one of the tall trees..."
This memorial plaque marks where, during the First and Second World War, a total of 337 German soldiers had their temporary resting place.--Wikipedia Commons
It seems curious that the German government repatriated 221 of them to a cemetery in France--not to one in the Fatherland.
St. Brelade's Churchyard, the Island of Jersey. --Wikipedia Commons