June 25, 2023 - Luxembourg
American Cemetery

The next morning we departed Tier and headed for Luxembourg and the American Cemetery located just outside Luxembourg City on the east side.

We checked into the very small visitors center.  There wasn't much to it but the attendant was very knowledgeable, friendly and helpful.
   
As with every other overseas American military cemetery I've been to, the cemetery was beautifully kept and extremely well done.
   
The attendant told us something I had not realized.  The United States does not keep military cemeteries in countries that were our enemy in war.  So there are no American military cemeteries in Germany or Japan, for example.  Luxembourg, Belgium and France:  yes.
   
Monument with a small chapel inside at ground level.
   
"All who shall hereafter live in freedom will be here reminded taht to these men and their comrades we owe a debt to be paid with grateful remembrance of their sacrifice and with the high resolve that the cause for which the died shall live eternally."   Well said.
   
This was the reason we came here.  The single grave maker is that of General George S. Patton, commanding general of the U.S. Third Army in World War Two.  He died shortly after the end of World War Two and now rests here looking out over his troops.
   
 
   
5.076 war dead of the U.S.A. from World War II rest here.  Most died in fighting to the north of the city and eastward to the Rhine during the winter of 1944 and the spring of 1945 as well as in air operations over these regions.
   
 The construction and care of this 50.0 acre cemetery and memorial are the responsibility of the American Battle Monuments Commission, an agency of the U.S. government.  Use of the land was granted, in perpetuity, by the people of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
   
 
   
This Staff Sergeant was from Maryland.  Like so many buried here, he was killed in the Battle of the Bulge which took place in Luxenbourg and Belgium.
   
 
   
The memorial had some large, excellent maps showing World War II.  This one does a good job of showing the Allies progress from May 1944 to August 1944.  The U.S. and U.K. invaded at Normandy, of course, but also in southern France, and made progress in Italy.  The Soviets destroyed the German Army Group Center in western Russian and took half of Poland.
   
The U.S. (red) and U.K. (green) progress from Normandy across France and Germany to the end of the war in May 1945.
   
The German attack in the Ardennes called the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and the Allied counterattack.
   
Progress from 1 August 1944 to the end of the war on 8 May 1945.
   
I must say that the few overseas American cemeteries I have been to, the American Battle Monuments Commission seems to do it right.
   
 
   
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