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Video by Staff Sgt. James Garvin

A Hero With No Name - Burial of a WWI Unknown Soldier

U.S. Army Europe and Africa

June 7, 2023 | 3:54

The remains of an unknown World War I U.S. Soldier were discovered in February 2022, in Villers-sur-Fère, a small village in northeastern France. An undertaker for the local cemetery dug up human remains during an effort to expand the cemetery.

The full honors military burial held on June 7th, 2023 at Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in France, followed a yearlong process to exhume remains and artifacts, and to identify the soldier's nationality in order to provide a 1 final resting place.

This was the first burial of an unknown from WWI since 1988, and the first burial at Oise-Aise American Cemetery since it was dedicated in 1937.

HISTORY OF THE BATTLE - Taken from Michael E. Rune of The Washington Post
In late July 1918, the U.S. Army's 42d Infantry Division was pushing back German forces around the Ourco River, less than a mile north of Villers-sur Fère. The Great War would end three months later, but not before the some of the most intense fighting of the conflict took place. The regiment lost 264 men in the Battle of the Ourcq River.

*Cemetery drone and burial ceremony footage shot by The American Battle Monuments Commission

Learn more: www.abmc.gov/news-events/news/wwi-unknown-soldiers-remains-unearthed-after-more-century-be-laid-rest-oise-aisne.