On Hallowed Ground

by Robert M Poole

  Like most American men and women who fought in the war, Knappie survived the great conflagration, which is thought to have claimed more than sixty million victims worldwide. Most of those deaths, perhaps thirty-nine million, were civilians. This gruesome metric made World War II unique: it was the first armed conflict in which civilian fatalities outstripped combatant deaths. The exact numbers—from death camps, bombings, collateral fire, starvation, displacement, and other causes—can only be guessed. Thousands of civilians simply disappeared. As in the Great War, the Soviet Union paid the biggest price, with an estimated thirteen million troops and sixteen million civilians killed.47

  Poland, which counted more than 6.1 million wartime deaths, suffered the greatest proportion of losses—20 percent of its population.48 This broke the heart of famed Polish pianist, composer, and statesman Ignace Jan Paderewski, who was forced to watch the dismemberment of his country from exile. Age eighty, he died in New York City in June 1941, just as Hitler unleashed his invasion of the Soviet Union. As the first prime minister of modern Poland and president of the wartime Polish parliament in exile, Paderewski was widely viewed as a symbol of patriotism and independence—a perception not lost on President Roosevelt, who gave the great musician temporary refuge at Arlington. There Paderewski was buried in a vault under the U.S.S. Maine Memorial until he could rest again in free Polish soil. Nobody, least of all Roosevelt, imagined that Paderewski would remain at Arlington for another fifty-one years, waiting for the war to end, then waiting for Eastern Europe to shake off domination of the Soviet Union. Paderewski’s long exile finally ended in 1992, when he was brought out of the vault, carried through the hills of Arlington for the last time, and returned to a place of high honor at St. John’s Cathedral in Warsaw.49

  His presence at Arlington, like that of other foreigners interred there during the war years, helped make the national cemetery more international in character. This reflected a maturing outlook of the United States, which was less parochial, less isolationist, and more involved with global affairs as a result of its wartime experience. The conflict imposed new obligations on Americans, who, having been thrust onto the world stage by circumstances, remained prominently in that position.50

  Compared to European and Asian nations, the United States paid a relatively small price for its role in the war,51 sacrificing some 359,000 in combat, accidents, and other causes, while reaping economic benefits and international standing—one reason, perhaps, World War II is sometimes called the last good war.52 Seen through the narrow lens of American history, however, the Second World War must be considered a national tragedy, coming second only to the Civil War in the number of lives it cost. This lesson is brought home at Arlington, where one walks among endless rows of graves of those who died at Anzio, Normandy, Iwo Jima, and other faraway battle zones, only to realize that they do not approach the toll from Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and other scenes of America’s bloodiest conflict, which continues to haunt the old plantation.

  The succession of wars led to improved methods for recovering and identifying the dead. As soon as the Second World War ended, thousands of specialists from the quartermaster’s Graves Registration Service sifted through the battlefields of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific to find, identify, and concentrate the dead in 288 temporary cemeteries. There they remained until they could be shipped home or reburied in fourteen overseas cemeteries from the major theaters of war.53 As in previous conflicts, families had the option of leaving their loved ones abroad or repatriating them to the United States. Some 97,000 war dead were brought home, many of them to Arlington.54 By 1955, this influx of World War II burials pushed the number of graves in the cemetery from some 44,000 to 70,000. More space was needed, and Arlington grew from 400 acres to 600 acres. The new land came from South Post at Fort Myer, where temporary wartime buildings were knocked down to make room for orderly rows of graves by the river—the very terrain General Somervell had coveted for his Pentagon.55

  As in the Civil War, it took far longer to clean up from the Second World War than it took to fight it. Five years after the conflict ended, the Graves Registration Service was still recovering bodies. By this time, though, quartermaster squads had identified all but 3 percent of Americans killed in the war—an extraordinary achievement considering the breadth and violence of the conflict. The recovery campaign marked the most extensive reinterment effort in history, according to Steven E. Anders, historian for the Quartermaster Corps.56

  Careful record keeping and the widespread use of dog tags made most identifications routine, but in a few cases some detective work was required. One badly mauled soldier was found with no dog tags or identifying marks, except for a ring he wore. What made it peculiar was that it came from a girl’s school, which led army investigators to a roster of students, and eventually to a woman who provided the missing soldier’s name. Dental evidence produced identities for many casualties; laundry marks or remnants of letters identified others.57 Of the 359,000 Americans who died in World War II, investigators produced positive identification for 271,000; 10,000 more were classified as unknowns; 78,000 were missing in action. Of those missing, about half were determined to be “unrecoverable,” lost at sea or entombed in shipwrecks.58 To this day, specialty teams from the Pentagon’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command continue searching for the 39,000 who never came home—with some success. Each year about fifty of the war dead are found at remote mountainside crash sites, in overgrown jungles, on isolated Pacific atolls, and sent home, beneficiaries of improved forensic methods, advances in DNA technology, and the government’s commitment to account for all service members missing from all wars.59

  Many are repatriated to Arlington, where they lie among thousands of fellow citizen-soldiers long since returned from the Second World War. Most are known only to the diminishing circle of family and friends who survive them. But a few others, whose names are incised on worn tombstones at Arlington, also hold prominent places in the national memory: Gen. George C. Marshall, who planned and directed the war and helped Europe climb out of the ruins; Gen. Omar N. Bradley, who led the First Army to victory in Europe; Adm. William D. Leahy, who offered FDR counsel through the war years; Adm. William F. “Bull” Halsey Jr., who won a hard-fought victory at Guadalcanal; Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, who founded the modern Air Force; Lt. Gen. James Doolittle, who led daring B-25 bombing raids on Japan in 1942; Lt. Gen. Claire Chennault, who led the 14th Air Force in China; Brig. Gen. William “Wild Bill” Donovan, who organized the wartime Office of Strategic Services, forerunner to the CIA; Lt. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell, father of the Pentagon; Army Maj. Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of World War II;60 Marine Pfc. Lee Marvin, who stormed ashore at Saipan, got shot in the butt, and returned to civilian life as an actor; Pvt. Dashiell Hammett, who edited an Army paper in the Aleutian Islands; and Sgt. Joe Louis, the “Brown Bomber,” who staged ninety-six exhibition matches for troops while serving in a segregated unit. Each earned his place at Arlington; each did his duty; each met the standard described by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. “Every little job is essential,” Patton told his troops on the eve of D-Day in 1945. “Every man is a link in the great chain. Every man … plays a vital part.”61

  Patton, not always the most tolerant of officers, even admitted that black soldiers had a role to play. Originally skeptical of how African Americans would perform in combat, Patton changed his mind after watching his all-black tank battalion, the 761st, plowing across Europeand performing heroically. “I have nothing but the best in my Army,” he crowed. “I don’t care what color you are as long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sons-of-bitches.”62

  Patton’s endorsement helped undermine the long and insupportable practice of segregation in the services. Returning veterans challenged their government to live up to its democratic ideals at home. President Harry S. Truman rose to the occasion, banishing racial discrimination in the services with a stroke of his pen on July 26, 1948. His Execut
ive Order 9981 called for “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.”63 Truman’s action, designed to help the living, also exalted the dead at Arlington, where segregated burials were soon consigned to the past.64

  In the same month that Truman signed his historic order, the barriers of rank consciousness began to crumble at Arlington, thanks to a generous departing gesture from one famous old soldier. Gen. John J. Pershing, who had led American forces to victory in World War I. He watched from the sidelines as the next conflict ran its course, suffering from ill health when the Japanese surrender brought peace back to Washington. Seemingly forgotten by the public, lonely in his rooms at Walter Reed Army Hospital, the old hero had been relegated to the shadows, a relic of old wars and old ways. In better times, when the memory of his exploits was green in the public mind, he had been bombarded with hundreds of telegrams each Armistice Day. On his last one, in 1947, only ten arrived.65

  Pershing began to contemplate his own funeral at Arlington, where he had seen so many comrades buried. It was a place as familiar to him as any home he ever knew. Always a stickler for details, Pershing took care of the particulars. Instead of erecting a lavish monument to himself, as so many officers had done since Civil War days, Pershing asked for the simple white government-issue tombstone available to any private. And, unlike officers who routinely commanded better real estate than those who fought under them, Pershing chose a burial site among enlisted men from the Great War. “Here let me rest among the World War veterans,” Pershing is supposed to have told an officer who helped him select his gravesite. “When the last bugle call is sounded, I want to stand up with my soldiers.”66

  Age eighty-seven, he died in his sleep on July 15, 1948. Forgotten in life, he was remembered in death as few others are. Thousands of mourners, including President Truman and General Marshall, filed by his casket in the Capitol Rotunda, where the old general lay in state for twenty-four hours. Both Truman and Marshall had served under him; both had revered him; both solemnly marked his passing, as did some 300,000 ordinary citizens who crowded the sidewalks to watch Black Jack’s caisson make its slow, stately progress to Arlington on July 19. The skies opened and the rains came down; the wet streets fell utterly, eerily silent, a sign of respect for the man crossing the brown Potomac on his last journey.67

  Dutifully sloshing behind Pershing’s caisson, two soldiers who had served under him debated whether to seek cover or get soaked that day.

  “Brad, what do you think?” Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower asked Gen. Omar N. Bradley, as they marched along.

  “For Black Jack Pershing I think it would be proper if we walked in the rain,” said Bradley.68

  They marched on. Drenched by the time they arrived at Arlington, they joined a sodden khaki tide, which flowed unbroken down the crest of a hill on Grant Avenue, accompanied by the dull thunder of artillery, the thump of muffled drums, and the memories of comrades sleeping in long rows all around.69

  “The march of another soldier is ended,” said Maj. Gen. Luther D. Miller, chief of Army chaplains: A few more words, a barking of rifles, the solace of Taps, and they lowered General Pershing into the ground, where he was surrounded by the simple tombstones of regular soldiers who still keep him company on the prominence now known as Pershing’s Hill.70

  11

  THE NASTIEST LITTLE WAR

  SINCE HIS BURIAL BENEATH the amphitheater terrace in 1921, The unknown of World War I had held the heights of Arlington in undisputed solitude, representing the war to end all wars, as well as the hope that the first great clash of the twentieth century would be the last. It was not, of course, but merely a forerunner of worse to come.

  After Japan’s surrender in August 1945, belligerents emerged from the ruins of World War II, shook off the dust, and commenced the hard work of recovery. Maps were redrawn, armies of occupation marched into place, schools and factories were painstakingly rebuilt. War trials began, memorials were erected across Europe, and search parties went forth to find and retrieve the dead from distant lands. It was a time for contemplating the enormity of what had transpired, a time for setting things right again. In the United States, that meant welcoming returning veterans, heading back to work, starting families, and planning suitable honors for the unlucky ones who never made it home.

  Following precedent from the First World War, legislation was introduced in September 1945 to have an unknown serviceman from World War II brought to Arlington, where he would rest beside his comrade from the earlier conflict. The measure, signed into law by President Harry S. Truman in June 1946, called for this Unknown to be installed at Arlington no later than May 30, 1951, for Memorial Day celebrations. Given the global reach of the recent hostilities and the devastation they produced, the secretary of war allowed five years for recovery missions, an act of devotion barely begun before it had to be called off.1

  A new war had intervened, forestalling efforts to clean up from the last one. On June 25, 1950, some 90,000 North Korean troops plowed across the 38th parallel in a surprise assault on South Korea, a U.S. ally. The offensive against the Republic of Korea, encouraged by Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, raised fears in Washington that Communists intended to fill the Asian power vacuum created by the collapse of Japan.2 This prospect caused President Truman to divert occupying troops from Japan, mobilize forces at home, ask for reinforcements from the newly established United Nations, and rush them to defend South Korea.3

  Thus began the three-year conflict described by historian S. L. A. Marshall as “the century’s nastiest little war,” fought on forbidding mountain terrain, often in freezing conditions, against a numerically superior enemy. While keen to answer the Communist thrust in Asia, President Truman worried that all-out war in Korea might spark a larger conflict with the Soviet Union, which had just exploded its first nuclear weapons. He hoped for a short, limited war on the Korean peninsula—so limited, in fact, that he preferred not to use the three-letter word for armed conflict; the Korean intervention was not a war but a police action, Truman announced, embracing the polite language of the United Nations, even as he summoned thousands of Americans for combat.4

  Whatever one called the Korean adventure, it proved costly: by the time a truce suspended hostilities in July 1953, more than 36,576 American service members had been killed,5 along with 415,000 South Korean combatants and an estimated 1.5 million North Korean and Chinese soldiers.6 Despite its steep cost in lives, the Korean war resulted in a stalemate: After North Korea’s dramatic opening assault, which left UN forces and the 8th U.S. Army teetering on the southeastern edge of the peninsula, the allies rallied; in September 1950, they launched a daring amphibious assault behind enemy lines at Inchon, while the 8th Army broke out of the Pusan Perimeter and ground its way toward North Korea. By October 26, the allies had overrun Pyongyang; just before Halloween they reached the Yalu River on the Chinese border. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commanding the combined allied forces from headquarters in Tokyo, assumed that the war would end then and there. He was wrong.

  By November 1950, China had joined the fight, sending hundreds of thousands of its soldiers into North Korea near Unsan. These forces, combined with those from North Korea, made up in numbers what they lacked in modern equipment. They pushed south, driving allied troops before them, regaining Pyongyang, overcoming fierce Marine resistance around the Chosin Reservoir, and breaking across the 38th parallel by the end of the year. They retook Seoul in January 1951.

  Then the tide of war turned again: UN troops, reinforced from the United States, rallied, secured Seoul, fought their way north, and pushed enemy forces back across the 38th parallel. This time the line held, but to what end? Neither side could claim decisive victory: the North had been unable to unify the country as a Communist whole; the South had repelled the North, but had failed to make it part of a fledgling democracy; the border between the two countries remained essentially where it had been at
the outset of hostilities, but with a demilitarized zone interposed between warring parties.

  Summing up the Korean experience in The Coldest Winter, the late David Halberstam described the war as “a puzzling gray, very distant conflict, a war that went on and on and on, seemingly without hope or resolution.”7 Opposing armies advanced, retreated, reappeared, and melted away. Positions were overrun and abandoned, only to change hands again in the following months; some places shifted ownership two or three times in the course of the war, which not only changed the way the United States fought through the unsettled, oscillating conflict but also revolutionized how the nation cared for its war dead. In the two previous wars of the twentieth century, American forces had concentrated their fallen combatants in temporary cemeteries within allied lines, with the understanding that the graves would be opened, its occupants identified, and the dead properly reburied or repatriated as soon as the fighting stopped.8

  This practice proved impossible in Korea. In some cases, enemy forces pressed forward so swiftly and in such overwhelming numbers that the allied dead had to be hurriedly abandoned where they had fallen. In another instance, workers in Inchon unearthed the UN cemetery, hustled more than 800 dead to a waiting ship, and steamed for Japan—and safety—just two hours before Chinese forces swooped down on the city. Living soldiers sometimes competed for space with the dead on evacuation transports, which were in short supply in the war’s early stages. “When they ran out of truck-bed space, they laid the dead on fenders, across hoods, tied on the barrels of artillery pieces,” a marine private recalled.9 Even when circumstances allowed for orderly retreat and burial in temporary cemeteries, a number of these graveyards were overrun as North Korean and Chinese troops pushed south, stripping the dead of boots and other equipment as they went. Dog tags, taken as trophies of war, disappeared in the back-and-forth struggle for the Pusan Perimeter, where the number of unknowns soared as a result. As the first months of war drew to a close, it was obvious that the United States needed to rethink its recovery methods to meet realities in Korea.10