(14 of 14)
Our glider came in over a hedgerow of trees about 80 ft. high and nosed down into a level pasture. It was a hard, pancake-type landing. The front strut came through the wooden floor of the glider and ripped toward the rear, barely missing the legs of some of the troops. We had landed a hundred yards from the personnel-assembly point at the crossroads of Les Forges. It was early evening, and we had about four hours before dark. After a quick check of the surrounding area, I selected a large field adjacent to the Les Forges crossroads as the first work site. Four dead paratroopers already lay in the corner by the crossroads. As I examined the site, two jeeps with trailers loaded with bodies drove in and were directed to the corner of the field where the other bodies lay. The drivers made it clear they were delivering but not unloading. I sized up the situation and decided the time had come for me to act like the graves-registration representative that I was. For the first time in my life, I touched a dead man. I grabbed the leg of one of the bodies and rolled it off onto the ground. As I struggled, the drivers gave in and assisted me with the remainder of the bodies. There were now 14 dead lying in a row, and more loaded vehicles were driving into the field.
After studying the surrounding terrain, I went to one corner of the field and stuck my heel in the ground. This would be the upper left corner of the first grave. I found an empty K-ration carton and split it into wooden stakes. I paced off the graves in rows of 20 and marked them with the stakes. I had no transit, tape measure, shovels, picks or any other equipment needed to establish a properly laid-out cemetery.
Lieut. Fraim returned and said he had arranged for about 35 Frenchmen to start digging graves. The next morning, I could see them coming my way, carrying a mixture of picks, shovels and lunch pails. All the men were very old or crippled in some way. There was little conversation, since I spoke no French and they spoke no English. The long row of bodies and marking stakes made it apparent what was to be done.
I began the job of processing bodies. There were plenty of parachutes in the field, so nylon panels served as personal-effects bags and body bags. Each body was searched and all personal effects were secured, but no inventory was taken. A ruled tablet served as Graves Registration Form No. 1. Both identification tags were left with the body until it was ready to be placed into a grave. One tag stayed with the body after burial, and the other was attached to the stake that served as a grave marker. Today a small monument at the Les Forges crossroads marks the cemetery location and records that 6,000 Allied troops from the Normandy invasion were buried there. Later, the bodies were moved to permanent cemeteries in Normandy or sent back to the U.S. for burial.
Interviews for this story were drawn from the oral-history project at the Eisenhower Center for American Studies in New Orleans as well as reporting by Helen Gibson/London, James Graff/Paris and Barbara Maddux/New York