Row On Row: Here, Too, They Lie in Grafton, WV

We are the dead.
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn,
Saw sunsets glow....

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep....

From "In Flanders Fields," by Lt. Col. John McCrae, Canadian Army, 1915

The small, unprepossessing town of Grafton, West Virginia, population 5,500 give or take, the kind of place that history has made but nearly everyone has missed, has within it a national military cemetery, just off Walnut Street, on the southwest part of town. The B and O Railroad, there for more than a century and a half and making Grafton a significant battleground region of the very early days of the Civil War, slides alongside the closely-clipped lawns and neatly-kept graves distributed evenly among tiered hillsides, framing the property parallel with the street above it.

It is not well-traveled. Businesses are stretched largely along mostly dilapidated buildings on Main Street, on the other side of the Tygart River, two bridges away. Had the area have been subdivided, other homes would probably have been built and expanded a quiet neighborhood.

By order of the Adjutant General in 1875, says the plaque not far from the front gate, the cemetery is open sunup to sundown. No carriage or vehicle can proceed within it at anything faster than walking speed. No refreshments are allowed.

I wondered, as I walked alone among the graves on a Saturday afternoon, how many people actually visit over a year's time; though gorgeous hydrangeas blossomed in places, there were no flowers laid anywhere. When I visited Grafton on May 12 for its International Mother's Day celebration, which it proudly and justly claims to own, I was advised by more than one person to be sure to return for Memorial Day, because that was a very big deal around there. I could not, but I promised myself to do so.

Grafton also lays claim to Memorial Day's development, you see. In a kiosk alongside the sidewalk next to Walnut Street, it says that, when the cemetery was first dedicated in 1869, schoolchildren were invited to strew flowers among the graves. That became known as Flower Scattering Day, which apparently morphed into Decoration Day, and hence Memorial Day.

It was my impression that Memorial Day's origins had more to do with honoring black soldiers who died for the freedom of their progenitors in the Civil War. But like other historical events and commemorations--the birthplace of the Republican Party comes to mind; both Jackson, Michigan and Ripon, Wisconsin lay claim--this has perhaps a fuzzy, disputed basis that might lack a solid research foundation but suits the locals just fine.

Another kiosk, this one containing a loose-leaf binder, stands at the base of the concrete stairs leading into the cemetery. It has pages upon pages of those who lie there; to the best of someone's knowledge, their dates of birth/death and dates of internment are listed. Sometimes, the latter two dates are not close together, suggesting that they might have been buried quickly near a battlefield and then disinterred and laid to final rest here, with comrades, a job I can't imagine having. Some gravestones have rankings; nearly all have their home states carved into them. A significant number went back to the Civil War.

Not nearly all have been identified, though. By my count, some 688 graves were not. Those are marked not with standing stones, but with imbedded markers with only their site numbers. And this cemetery, perhaps two blocks square in total size, paled in comparison to the one about two miles west of town, officially named the West Virginia National Cemetery, with hills upon hills of graves going on for dozens of acres.

A date can tell a story by itself. I copied down a few dates that I, a former history teacher, remembered like the back of my hand. I couldn't help but see, for instance, that a few who lie there perished on June 6, 1944.

That was D-Day, the greatest invasion in world history to this time. There was another theater of World War II, of course, in which battles were being fought on various Pacific islands. No reason any of those who died on that date couldn't have been killed by Japanese forces on places like New Guinea, Guam, or the Philippines, all campaigns going on at that time.

There was help available. A site called HonorStates.org claims to have tracked 90% of all the deceased of both world wars, a heck of an accomplishment if true because we're talking about more than 550,000 who died altogether. Through HonorStates, I found biographical information on these men buried in the Grafton Military Cemetery:

• Private Jamie McComb, from Taylor County, WV, where Grafton is located, who died on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Jamie was a member of a transportation unit. I wondered if a shell hit the transport in which he was riding, one of the "Higgins boats," as they were called (because as Stephen Ambrose wrote in his book D-Day, they were built by Higgins Industries in New Orleans, and could carry troops to landing beaches in just 18 inches of water, getting them as close as possible, enemy fire notwithstanding), launched from larger vessels in the English Channel, as it approached the beach. Maybe Jamie McComb actually made it to Omaha Beach that terrible but triumphant morning. We know that he didn't make it to his 20th birthday.
• Private First Class Max Stemple, who was born in Grafton. He flew into Normandy with the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles, and died that same day. Like McCord, it did not say exactly how he died. Lots of the 101st parachuted into France just after midnight to secure bridges and ruin enemy communications in anticipation of the invasion, just six and a half hours away. Some were spotted and shot before they hit the ground. Some came in on gliders, dropped by planes whose flight paths had been disrupted by Axis anti-aircraft fire, and whose landing areas were largely unknown because their pilots landed literally blind in the darkness in unfamiliar areas, completely remote from where they thought they were going. The unlucky gliders were destroyed upon landing and many of the airborne soldiers on them were killed before they had had a chance to carry out their missions. Many of the airborne troops from the 101st and the 82nd, "All-American" Division, who survived those crashes were separated by the formerly coordinated, now-random landings and spent much of the overnight hours trying to find each other, never mind the enemy-held objectives (read Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day for firsthand testimony from those who survived). Either way, Max Stemple might not have seen dawn. He was 17 days short of his 32nd birthday.
• Staff Sergeant David Casto, of Nicholas County, was a member of the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 101st Airborne, when he died on D-Day. He was 25 years old.
• PFC Roy Kirby, also from Grafton, was in Company B, 401st Glider Infantry, 101st Airborne. He managed to survive his glider landing and advance with his Allied comrades for two more days. He was 34 years old.

Others weren't as easy to trace. There were men from Ohio and West Virginia cavalries who died during the time of the Battle of Gettysburg (thanks to the Ohio History Connection for its help here), but they weren't at that decisive moment in history. They were in or near Beverly, Virginia, which I tried to find on a gazetteer but couldn't, at least not exactly. It appears to be in the Shenandoah Mountains.

Nonetheless: Today we take a moment to salute them, in Grafton, West Virginia and elsewhere. They saved us from the further ravages of slavery and authoritarian fascism, the latter of which seems to be making a very disturbing comeback. If that next war comes to turn it back once again, it's not absurd now to ask: Which side will we be on? 

On the 75th anniversary of D-Day, coming up next week, 45 will be traveling to France to speak at a commemorative ceremony. Will he perform with the propriety with which this event is being staged, with the survivors of the battle, now at least in their 90s, gathering for probably the last time? Or will he descend once again into a pathetic, ridiculous, hyperbolic overflow of irresponsible, politically-laced ranting? That we even have to wonder about this monster performing so horribly, "breaks faith with those who have died," if you allow me to paraphrase from the above poetry.

I'm cringing. Aren't you?

Be well. I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark