Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial () is a Second World War military war grave cemetery, located in the village of Margraten, east of Maastricht, in the most southern part of the Netherlands. The cemetery, the only American one in the Netherlands and dedicated in 1960, contains a constantly varying number above 8,000 American war dead and covers . It is administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission.
History
The cemetery was created in November 1944 under the leadership of Lt. Col. Joseph Shomon of the 611th Graves Registration Company, as the Ninth United States Army pushed into the Netherlands from France and Belgium. As the war was coming to an end, it was expected that the cemetery would have to be built twice in the following years: first to accommodate what would become more than 20,000 dead of the last months of the conflict, including enemy dead, then to what would become a reduced population of 8,000 as other permanent cemeteries were opened, bodies were returned to America at the wish of American families, and enemy dead were moved to their home countries. At the outset, it was determined that the cemetery would congregate war dead within 600 km of Margraten with the goal that no Americans would remain buried in enemy territory.
With cooperation of the leadership of the village of Margraten, the cemetery was plotted out in prime agricultural land for which farmers would eventually receive compensation. It would eventually comprise 65 acres on an historic former Roman highway that had carried the growth of Europe and movements of war since the Early Middle Ages. In the 21st century, the road is a mostly rural artery between Maastricht, Netherlands and Aachen, Germany (N278 becoming German1). The first ground was broken with the labor of the largely African American 960th Quartermaster Corps at the outset of what would be a historically cold and wet winter. The work was with picks and shovels to create a standard grave that was 6 feet deep, 6 feet long and 2 ½ feet wide. After processing, the body was to be placed in a mattress cover with its dog tag in its mouth. The first 300 dead were buried during Thanksgiving 1944. As the winter went on the process was complicated by frozen dead, the constant flooding of graves before they could be filled and the inability of transport and machinery to maintain reliable solid ground.
Spring 1945 brought relief to the effort involved but a dramatic and accelerated number of those to be buried. As the number of dead increased with the nearby Battle of the Bulge and other conflicts it became necessary for the U.S. military to ask the people of Margraten for help. The response of the village initiated a full relationship between south Limburg Province of the Netherlands and the American cemetery that remained active into the 21st century. The cemetery was ceremonially opened on Memorial Day 1946 as an event of international attention and with the attendance of twenty trucks full with flowers from sixty surrounding villages. The final phase of the cemetery's development, in 1949, required the disinterment of most burials for return home or movement to other cemeteries, redesign and reinterment for the creation of the modern Netherlands American Cemetery of the American Battle Monuments Commission.
Nearly all US personnel were concentrated at the cemetery with the exception of some burials at Zoetermeer (pilot John E. McCormick), Loosdrecht (Jasper Vandenbergh killed in action 16 December 1944 at St. Vith - originally interred at Henri-Chappelle but moved to Loosdrecht cemetery at the request of his parents who both came from the town) and Opijnen (eight of the crew of B-17 Man-O-War shot down over Opijnen on 30 July 1943).
Over 3,000 Germans that had been buried in a field adjacent to the American one were reburied at Ysselsteyn German war cemetery. Russian soldiers were moved to Amersfoort. Additionally, a thousand Commonwealth soldiers, mainly British and Canadian, were also moved to cemeteries elsewhere post war.
The cemetery was dedicated in 1960 and officially opened by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.
Architecture and layout
The cemetery covers and from the entrance there is Court of Honor with a reflecting pool. There is a visitors' building and a museum with three engraved operations maps designed by Yale University graduate Lewis York (who is buried in Akron, Ohio) and executed by the Dura Company of Heerlen, Holland, describing the movements of the American forces in the area during World War II. At the base of the chapel tower, facing the reflecting pool, is a statue by Joseph Kiselewski representing the grieving mother for her lost son.
