Cambridge American Cemetery

From "Upfront With NGS" for Sept. 1, 2008 comes the following:

England’s Cambridge American Cemetery by Jan Alpert, NGS President On a recent trip to Essex County, England, with the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, Great Migration Tour, I learned of a new World War II record source. Just outside of Cambridge, England, is the Cambridge American Cemetery. The American Battle Monuments Commission, which was created by a law enacted in 1923 for commemorating the services of the United States Armed Forces, established this 30-acre cemetery. Donated by the University of Cambridge in 1944, it is the only American World War II cemetery in the British Isles.

The memorial includes a series of maps that display the major military operations against Germany and Japan during the war, as well as a display of the various medals that are awarded in the Armed Services.

The 3,810 headstones include soldiers who served between 1941 and 1945 and were temporarily interred in England or Northern Ireland, who died in invasions in North Africa and France, or whose bodies were found in the north Atlantic but never identified. A wall lists the names by military unit, including Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard, then alphabetically lists more than 5,000 men and women missing in action, lost, or buried at sea. The website contains much more information at http://www.abmc.gov. If you have an ancestor who died in or around the British Isles, the Cambridge American Cemetery is worth a further look.

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cbh