The Cemetery Near Saint Avold

The drive from Strasbourg toward Paris on the A4 highway travels through open farm country. At this time of year, many of the fields are bright yellow with the blossoms of rapeseed, which eventually will be harvested and pressed into canola oil. For an allergy sufferer, this is hell. These are square miles of pollen-producing flowers.

Not quite one hundred years ago, these fields also produced some of the most bitter harvests in history. Many of these fields are littered with the bones of French, British, and Germans who met here during World War I in the rolling hills near the quiet little town of Verdun.

The WWI stuff we knew about. However, as we were driving along the A4 we were suprised to see the symbol of the American Flag on the highway sign marking the exit for the town of Saint Avold. We were in need of a rest stop anyway, so we followed the exit and stumbled across the American World War II Lorriane Military Cemetary.
As I've mentioned before, the winter of 1944 -5 must have been brutal in this region. Hollywood's history of that time talks mostly about the Battle of the Bulge and the fighting near the Belgian city of Bastogne. What is sometimes forgotten is that the fighting at that time raged, more or less, all along the Rhine from Belgium, through Alsace and Lorraine, to the Swiss border at Basel. The Battle of the Bulge is more properly known in military history as the Ardennes-Alsace Offensive.

The Alsatian portion of the battle gets lost in history, the forgotten part of the war. For a very good website describing the Alsatian struggles and the forgotten battles of the "Colmar Pocket", I suggest you visit this link.

And so it came about that many of the young men who were killed in these battles in Eastern France were buried in the cemetary near Saint Avold. The cemetary is actually the largest American WWII cemetary in Europe, narrowly surpassing those in Normandy for this sobering distinction. They say that there are over 10,000 graves remaining here. Originally, there were more but 60% of the men were returned home for burial there. 10,000 graves remain.

Here in the rolling hills near Saint Avold they gathered most of the American dead from Alsace and Lorraine. You have to be a hard soul not to weep. Most of these soldiers were children, the age of Amanda and Jake. Mon dieu, mon dieu.

It is a beautiful place, as much as any cemetary can be beautiful. The rolling hills of France in the springtime are a lovely setting. And no matter what complaints you may have with the US government, you cannot fault the job they've done with this monument. The grounds are immaculate. It is maintained with the respect deserved by all sleeping there. God bless them all and peace to those who live still missing them.