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Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial

(Luxembourg - Luxembourg - Hamm)

The area around the town of Luxembourg was liberated by the U.S. 5th. Armored Division on 10 September 1944 and on 29 December 1944, a temporary military cemetery built by the 609th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company of the U.S. 3rd Army.
In 1946 with the help of German prisoners of war, started with the work of building and placing of a scale of monuments, a chapel plus an office. In 1960 the cemetery took on its final form and the official opening was made on the July 4th 1960. Per year the cemetery receives about 120,000 visitors, and about 50,000 of those come from the USA.

In the beginning there were about 8,412 military personnel buried here, but after a while 5,050 of them were transferred to the United States. In 1948 the bodies/remains of 1700 military personnel that were buried in the neighborhood of Longuyon in France and Foy in Belgium were transferred to this cemetery bringing the total of graves to 5,076. Among them buried here, at the head of the cemetery is the grave of General George Patton jr.

Source

Text:

American Battle Monuments Commission

Photos:

Frits Kruishaar (1,2,4), Fedor de Vries (3) & Hans Molier (5)