#Monument
Provisional USA cemetery Memorial
The ‘Stele des Trois Cimetières's’ memorial was inaugurated on 7 June 2019. It commemorates and remembers American servicemen that were killed during the battle of Normandy and were buried in one of the three provisional cemeteries in this area.
During the Normandy campaign, in this area of the Cotentin peninsula, 13,787 American casualties were sustained. In the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise two provisional cemeteries were created. A third was in Blosville-Caquebut.
Each burial was recorded with details of the casualty taken, if they were known, and identified. The families of the American war dead would eventually then have a choice to make. They had the right for their family member to remain in France and be buried within a USA military cemetery or repatriated home to the States.
Studies on the repatriation process have shown that over 60% of those killed were repatriated home. The remaining 40% would then be buried with an American cemetery. This also means that the number of burials within the cemeteries, now maintained by the American Battle Monument’s Commission, have significant numbers but is a smaller snapshot of the overall losses suffered.
From the smaller provisional cemeteries around the area of the battlefield, casualties would eventually be consolidated into the cemeteries or repatriated home. It was not until 1947 that these cemeteries would begin that process. From this location the men were reinterned at the USA cemeteries at Coleville-sur-Mer or Saint-James.
One provisional cemetery was in this area of the memorial, where the road and carpark now is. The second was located to the west of the town where the supermarket is now located.
In 2019 when the memorial was unveiled, this was done in the presence of George Ciampa who was part of the burial parties who reinterned his fellow servicemen.