Monuments, Cemeteries, World War II

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MONUMENTS, CEMETERIES, WORLD WAR II

The scale of U.S. casualties in World War II was unlike anything seen before. In total, 400,000 Americans died during the war. The patriotism and emotions surrounding several key events led to the creation of numerous permanent remembrances. The key groups involved in creating these memorials have usually included a mix of veterans, artists and architects, and politicians.

cemeteries

Because American casualties occurred overseas, by 1945 hundreds of temporary foreign cemeteries had been created. At the time, Undersecretary of War Kenneth Royall was quoted as saying that he had spoken to many men going into battle who said if they were killed in action they wished to be buried in the countries they were fighting to liberate. Still, many families wanted their loved ones buried in the United States, so between 1947 and 1954 the army's American Graves Registration Service oversaw the repatriation of 172,000 American dead. In 1947, fourteen overseas sites were selected as permanent cemeteries by the Secretary of the Army and the American Battle Monuments Commission. The dead whose families had requested foreign burials were to be relocated from temporary cemeteries to the nearest permanent one. More than 93,000 World War II dead are buried in the permanent cemeteries in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

These cemeteries are located near sites where the Allies fought major battles against the Axis. The land was donated by the host countries for use by the United States in perpetuity. There was some delay in the Philippines because the government objected to making any of the temporary sites permanent. Finally, in 1948, the government allowed the establishment of a permanent cemetery on part of the former Fort William McKinley in Manila, a rough site that required considerable landscaping.

Prominent architects were selected to design each of the overseas cemeteries; each site was to have a chapel, a permanent way to record the names of the missing in the area, and explanatory maps of the local battles in which Americans fought and died. The designers were responsible for everything from the layout of the graves to the statuary and visitors building at each site. In 1949, the permanent burials were complete, and construction of the associated memorials was completed during the 1950s and early 1960s. The many rows of uniform white gravestones at each site make a bold visual impression.

monuments and memorials

The Marine Corps War Memorial was based on a photograph shot by Joe Rosenthal after the taking of the South Pacific island of Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945. In the photograph, six marines plant the American flag atop Mount Suribachi, and this image captured the imagination and stirred the patriotism of Americans at home. Soon after, senators and citizens alike began to promote the idea of a monument based on the photo. Sculptor Felix de Weldon made a small clay model of the scene within days of seeing the picture and was later commissioned to recreate the scene in bronze. He worked from photographs and from poses by the three surviving flag-raisers, creating a work in which thirty-two-foot-high marines raise a sixty-foot-high flag. At a final cost of $850,000, the memorial was erected in 1954 and dedicated by President Eisenhower.

The USS Arizona Memorial was built to honor those who died during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Arizona exploded after being hit by a bomb, and she sank in less than nine minutes with 1,177 of her crew aboard. Numerous ships and aircraft were damaged or destroyed that day, and U.S. military and civilian losses totaled 2,388, with another 1,178 wounded. Because the Arizona is the final resting place of so many of the day's dead, a memorial was built over the midsection of the battleship.

Suggestions for the memorial began in 1943, but steps to establish it were not taken until 1949, when the Pacific War Memorial Commission was established. In 1950, a flagpole was erected over the sunken Arizona and a commemorative plaque placed under the flagpole. President Eisenhower approved the creation of the memorial in 1958. Using a combination of private donations and public funds, construction was completed in 1961. The 184-foot structure was designed by architect Alfred Preis and consists of three sections: the entry and assembly rooms, a central area for ceremonies and observation, and the shrine room, where the names of those killed on the Arizona are engraved on the marble wall.

holocaust memorials

Americans are not the only victims of World War II remembered in the United States. Interest in memorializing the Holocaust was strong during the decades following the war, in part because many Jews had immigrated to the United States during the early twentieth century and had relatives who perished in Europe. Further, Holocaust survivors immigrated to the United States in the years following the war.

Around the country, various memorial museums created exhibits and educational programs about the Holocaust. The largest of these is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. By displaying artifacts such as victims' shoes, the museum memorializes the lost. In forcing visitors to confront the scale of the Holocaust, the photos, shoes, and other effects serve the same purpose as gravestones. The hexagonal Hall of Remembrance within the museum is a national memorial to the Holocaust victims and contains an eternal flame and memorial candles.

the world war ii memorial and the process of memorialization

With the close of the twentieth century and the aging of the World War II generation, public interest in honoring veterans increased. The idea for a national World War II memorial was first proposed in 1987 by a veteran in Ohio. In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed a law authorizing

the construction of a World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. The design was selected by a ten-member design jury and a twelve-member architect-engineer evaluation board. These panels consisted of prominent architects, critics, scholars, and veterans. Among the considerations were originality, appropriateness, and construction feasibility.

Architect Friedrich St. Florian's winning design was selected from a pool of four hundred. Key features include a memorial plaza, fountains, forty-three-foot memorial arches, and a semicircle of seventeen-foot-high granite pillars. The $67 million price tag was paid mostly by private donations.

Critics were numerous. Some said the design was bland or too reminiscent of fascist architecture. Others were upset about the memorial's location at the eastern end of the reflecting pool on the National Mall, where they felt it invaded the sacred space linking the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Despite protests, construction was begun in 2001.

The perception of World War II veterans as the "greatest generation" helped create public support for remembrances of all kinds. On Memorial Day 2004, the World War II Memorial was officially dedicated, the nation's first large-scale tribute to all 16 million Americans who served in the armed forces during the war.

The memorialization of those who lost their lives during World War II has occurred in numerous locations all across the nation. This reflects the fact that more Americans fought and died during World War II than in any other war. The perception of a just cause and the personification of the evil enemy (Adolf Hitler) helped polarize American society like never before. The American legacy of World War II has been met kindly with the passage of time, especially in recent years as the generation that lived through the war is thinning out and as the trials of 9/11 brought out American patriotism in full force once again.

bibliography

Bradley, James, with Powers, Ron. Flags of Our Fathers. New York: Bantam, 2000.

Nishiura, Elizabeth, ed. American Battle Monuments: A Guide to Military Cemeteries and Monuments Maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission. Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics, 1989.

Rajtar, Steve, and Franks, Frances Elizabeth. War Monuments, Museums, and Library Collections of 20th Century Conflicts: A Directory of United States Sites. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002.