Interesting short history on what I think has to be the worst job in war time.
Grissly…amd very important!
I think this might interest you. I interviewed this gentleman at the dedication of the U.S. WW2 Memorial in Washington D.C. about 3 years ago. He was a graves registration officer with Patton’s 3rd Army and he was severely wounded during the Battle of the Bulge. I tried to put the audio here but for some reason it will not upload. It’s an MP2 file. Does anyone know if this audio file can be uploaded here?
I’d be interested if someone can tell you how to get the audio up.
Military history, especially popular history, focuses on battles and stuff at the sharp end, not what some poor bastards have to do to deal with the aftermath.
I’d work in a graves unit in preference to being a POW of the Japanese, but I’d choose just about anything else over a graves unit. All of their work was awful, but having to disinter hastily buried bodies weeks or months later and send them back for permanent burial, and deal with that end of it as well, is beyond my imagination.
Yep. I got about 15 min. of the interview with him. He was proud of the fact that 100% of the bodies he found they identified. The worst was what was left in a tank. A foot here, another bone there. Not even the dog tags remained he said. As you can see in the picture, it looks like he has the Silver Star Award, and of course the Purple Heart for his combat wounds. I agree, every one had a part to play in the war. My Dad was a Seabee in the Pacific who helped build the bases where the war was staged, and where the wounded returned. I had a number of conversations with several veterans and got more interviews too. Quite amazing to get the history lesson first hand.