The Cemeteries of World War II: How We Chose To Honor Our Dead

Four hundred thousand Americans lost their lives during the Second World War. Many of them are buried in national cemeteries in the continental United States; many thousands more lie in cemeteries across the globe, which are overseen by the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Christopher Hamner, a professor of history at George Mason University, shares the design and layout of some of those cemeteries and examines how decisions made in the late 1940s and 1950s helped to shape the way Americans remember that conflict. Comparisons with British and German cemeteries of that era highlight the unique ways in which the United States chose to commemorate its war dead.

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