Top Photo: The Body of Ernie Pyle Laid To Rest. July 19, 1949. National Archives

On October 26, 1947, the first war dead from the European theater returned to the United States. Around 6,000 caskets arrived in New York City in the hold of the transport ship Joseph V. Connolly, and 400,000 Americans turned out in silent tribute to the dead, packing the streets and attending a memorial service in Central Park.

According to an article in The New York Times about the tribute, “One coffin, borne from the ship to a caisson, moved through the city’s streets to muffled drum beats and slow-cadenced marches.”1

The article reported on the march of the coffin to Central Park: “At 12:45 P.M. the coffin borne from the Connolly was set on a caisson. Women who saw this wept openly and men turned away. Somewhere a bugle note sounded, to move, a procession of more than 6,000—service men, veterans, city groups. … The curbs were crowded, but here, as at sea, the silence was awesome. Nobody spoke, not even the children. Eyes were moist and lips moved in prayer as the flag-draped coffin passed, the caisson drawn by a dark armored car with two sergeants, arms folded, high in the turret.”

Caskets of American War Dead Are Shown as They Are Loaded Into Hold #1 of the USAT Joseph V. Connolly, at Pier #4, Antwerp, Belgium. National Archives

As the procession marched through the city up Fifth Avenue, “The crowds at the curb were moved. Some let the tears run freely. Some wiped them away.” During the service in Central Park, one woman suddenly shouted, “Johnny… There’s my boy, there’s my boy.” At the end of the ceremony, the woman again cried out, “Where is my boy?”2

World War II had passed into history, but for some families, the end of the war did not bring closure. Years after, the pain of families remained very real, a pain that began during the war upon receiving a Western Union telegram telling of their loved one’s ultimate sacrifice.'

Western Union telegram sent from Adjutant General Ulio to Mrs. Rose Sudecz Sabados, Fairfield, Connecticut. Telegram informs her of her brother's death in Italy on July 12, 1944. From the collection of The National WWII Museum 2010.188.003

With the arrival of the war dead starting in 1947, many families who lost their loved ones were finally able to bury them after years of grief and waiting, hopefully gaining some sense of closure and resolution.

After World War II ended, the yearslong official US governmental process of interring the war dead in their final resting place began. Known as the “Return of the Dead Program,” the program established the options for the next of kin of the deceased. Families could choose between four options for the final burial of their loved ones: returning the remains to the United States for interment in a private cemetery; returning the remains to a foreign country (the homeland of the deceased or the next of kin) for interment in a private cemetery; interring the remains in a national cemetery in the United States; or interring the remains in a permanent US military cemetery overseas. The US government sent the pamphlet “Tell Me About My Boy” to families of the deceased to explain the process of establishing the next of kin and options for final burial. As the pamphlet noted, “Tell me about my boy” was the most frequent request sent to the US Army Quartermaster General for information about the return and final burial of the WWII dead.3

Pamphlet titled "Tell Me About My Boy". 1 December 1946. From the collection at The National World War II Museum 2004.207.088

The postwar program was “the largest of its nature ever undertaken by any nation at any time,” leading to the recovery of over 280,000 remains that had been scattered around the world due to the war. The program led to the repatriation of around 172,000 sets of remains back to the United States, a scale unprecedented in history. The effort cost around $163.8 million and involved 13,000 military and civilian workers.4  The repatriation program was uniquely an American phenomenon, with efforts undertaken for the return of American war dead overseas dating back to the Spanish–American War of 1898. After World War I, remains were also repatriated or buried in permanent American cemeteries abroad based on the wishes of the next of kin.5  The WWII program “stands out as a unique example of America’s respect and appreciation for those who died to preserve the free way of life.”6

Lieutenant Colonel Carroll Grinnell and a United States Army officer standing beside a war widow and her daughter; the casket containing the husband's remains are behind them. Schenectady, New York, 1949. From the collection of The National WWII Museum 2013.538.032

The process of repatriating the bodies of the war dead and burying them in their final resting place was a monumental undertaking. American war dead were scattered around the globe: many were buried in temporary cemeteries, while others still lay where they had fallen, on land or underwater. After the war, the US government launched a global effort to disinter temporary military cemeteries, find aircraft crash sites, and look for isolated graves near former battlefields. This task was undertaken by the American Graves Registration Service (GRS), a branch of the Army Quartermaster Corps. During the war, GRS worked to collect, identify, and bury the dead in temporary graves. In the postwar era, its mission was to conduct the final disposition of the WWII war dead in accordance with the wishes of the next of kin.7

Graves Registration during World War II

Even in the midst of heavy fighting during World War II, Graves Registration Service units performed the grim tasks of collecting, processing, and burying those killed, working under challenging conditions while maintaining the utmost respect and care for the fallen. GRS companies would follow combat units, sweeping areas near the front lines for fallen personnel and collecting bodies, sometimes even coming under threat from enemy fire or booby traps laid by enemy soldiers near the bodies. For example, during the heaviest fighting at Anzio in the Italian Campaign in January 1944, Ernie Pyle reported about Quartermaster support personnel coming under fire the same as the infantrymen they were supporting, including GRS personnel who were taking refuge in freshly dug graves. He wrote: “Up here on the beachhead, they are blowing that tradition all to hell. The Quartermaster Corps has been under fire ever since the beachhead was established and still is.”8

During the invasion of Normandy starting in June 1944, GRS personnel also landed ashore and worked to gather bodies from the beaches and the water, and even had to cut bodies from wrecked landing craft that had been submerged near the shoreline.9  Sergeant Elbert E. Legg, squad leader of the 603rd Quartermaster Corps GRS Company, volunteered to land with a glider unit of the 82nd Airborne Division on D-Day. Amid the fighting, he selected a field to use as a temporary cemetery and began preparations for proper procedures for temporary burial and record keeping, establishing a temporary cemetery at Blosville, Normandy.10

 A temporary cemetery in Italy: US Military Cemetery No. 3 at Caronia, Sicily, 1944. From the collection of The National WWII Museum 2013.495.1098

GRS companies were instrumental in the US war effort. They played an essential role in maintaining troop morale by clearing the battlefields of scattered dead as quickly as possible, handling the remains of their fellow Americans with respect and dignity. GRS companies selected sites for temporary cemeteries and collected, processed, identified, and buried the dead. In addition, they collected and documented the personal effects of the deceased, which were processed and returned to families via the Quartermaster Depot in Kansas City, Missouri.

After gathering bodies near the front lines, GRS companies transported the remains to collection points located in isolated areas in the rear areas, where personnel made their best possible efforts with the help of scientific equipment and medical technology to positively identify remains. During processing, GRS personnel filled out various forms, including the Graves Registration Form No. 1 (Report of Interment) containing data about the deceased and the burial; made fingerprints; filled out tooth charts; and noted other characteristics about the body. During burial, one dog tag was attached to the remains, while the duplicate was attached to the grave marker.

GRS personnel established temporary cemeteries with care, ensuring proper marking and recording of graves. Whenever possible during burials, a chaplain conducted religious services. GRS also attempted to keep isolated graves outside of cemeteries to a minimum. If GRS personnel could not identify a body after using all available means of identification, they conducted proper methods and procedures of burial for the unknowns, recording as much information as possible. Sometimes when the circumstances of war made it necessary, GRS also handled civilian, Allied, and enemy dead.11

Often, Quartermaster Service units such as labor battalions provided the labor for grave digging. Some of these units were segregated by race.12  During the liberation of the Netherlands in late 1944, Jefferson Wiggins (then 19 years old) served as a First Sergeant in the segregated 960th Quartermaster Service Company of the US Army. Wiggins was assigned along with his unit to dig thousands of graves in Margraten, Netherlands, in a cemetery which later became the Netherlands American Cemetery. About his experience as a grave digger, Wiggins stated, “When you lowered someone into his grave, you were the last human being that the dead person had contact with.”13

In addition, GRS companies depended on the labor of hired local civilians; sometimes even enemy prisoners of war served as grave diggers (but did not handle remains). The process of providing temporary burial continued until the end of the war, when authorities could plan for permanent burials.

By the end of the war, GRS had established several hundred temporary burial grounds. In 1947 during the “Return of the Dead” program, 14 sites were selected to become permanent American cemeteries abroad managed by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC). After the GRS transferred the remains from temporary cemeteries to their final resting sites, the temporary cemeteries that were not selected to be permanent cemeteries were closed. The remains on the first shipment of war dead from the European theater to the United States aboard the Joseph V. Connolly had been disinterred from their temporary resting places at the Henri-Chapelle Cemetery in Belgium (which became a permanent cemetery of the ABMC), and were repatriated back to the United States based on the wishes of the next of kin.

‘Where is My Boy?’: The Return of the Dead Program

Years after the war, those who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War II began to arrive back home to the United States. Remains were transported across the world to their final resting place in a shipping case containing the casket. After years of waiting, many families finally received an answer to the question “Where is my boy?” (or, for some families of female servicemembers, “Where is my girl?”).14

The majority (over 60 percent) of families who lost a loved one in World War II chose repatriation of the remains of their deceased loved ones to the United States. Nearly 172,000 sets of remains were returned to the United States until the “Return of the Dead” program’s conclusion in 1951.15

Casket Inspection – American Graves Registration Service, Chicago, Illinois, 1947. From the collection of The National WWII Museum 2013.538.030

Before the process of repatriation could happen, GRS conducted a massive, global search and recovery effort, which began six months after the war ended. The major challenge for this search effort was the immense scope in terms of numbers of losses and the vastness of the territory. In the Pacific, GRS personnel dealt with remote islands and challenging climates. In Europe, the geopolitical situation impacted the search, especially the rising tensions with the Soviet Union, which led to challenges in accessing parts of Germany to search for American remains that were now located in the Soviet occupation zone.16

This effort to locate, identify, and provide permanent burial abroad or via repatriation resulted in the positive identification of nearly 97 percent of all the recovered war dead.17  The work of identification depended on professional anthropologists at Central Identification Labs (CIL), including the groundbreaking Dr. Mildred Trotter, who served as the lead anthropologist at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii from 1948 to 1949.18

The first shipment of war dead to reach the United States arrived from the Pacific aboard the USAT Honda Knot, which arrived in San Francisco on October 10, 1947, a few weeks before the Joseph V. Connolly’s arrival in New York. The arrival of the around 3,000 remains from the Pacific theater was met with crowds of solemn Americans attending ceremonies in San Francisco honoring the fallen.19

U.S. Army Transport "Honda Knot" Passes Under the Golden Gate Bridge as She Carries the First of the WWII Dead Home from the Pacific Area. National Archives.

Upon the arrival of repatriated remains in the United States, they were organized by final destination and shipped in special rail cars to 15 Quartermaster distribution centers scattered across the country. After arrival at the distribution center, each set of remains then made the journey to its final resting place, accompanied by a military escort from the same service branch as the deceased.20

Each fallen American in World War II took his or her own journey from the moment of death during the world’s largest war to burial in the final resting place. This path is documented in the pages of the deceased’s Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF), which can include documents such as Graves Registration forms such as Form Number 1 (Report of Interment); disinterment directives, which were filled out as the body was moved between temporary cemeteries and to its final resting site; identification forms such as dental charts; forms regarding the personal effects of the deceased; telegrams regarding the shipment of remains; and heartrending correspondence from family members such as parents or wives inquiring about the death of their loved ones.

Crowd at a Ceremony for WWII Dead Recently Returned from the Pacific Area at Marina Green, San Francisco, California. National Archives

Within each IDPF is a story of deep private, personal loss, a tale of the ultimate sacrifice in World War II. Each record also tells a story of the immensity of the efforts of the final disposition of the WWII dead.

US Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Lloyd C. Blackney of Frankfort, Kansas, was killed in action on February 22, 1944, at Parry Island during the Battle of Eniwetok in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands Campaign in the Pacific theater. Blackney’s IDPF includes records regarding his initial burial after the battle in the temporary American Army Cemetery at Japtan Island on Eniwetok Atoll, the next temporary cemetery site, the Schofield Barracks Mausoleum in Oahu, Hawaii, and the ultimate repatriation of his body back to his family, where he was buried in Frankfort Cemetery in his hometown of Frankfort, Kansas.21

Blackney’s remains were among the first to arrive back in the United States on October 10, 1947, aboard the USAT Honda Knot. After arrival in San Francisco, the remains were then transported by rail to Frankfort via the Kansas City Quartermaster Depot, leaving Kansas City on November 13, 1947. Master Sergeant James M. O’Sullivan served as the escort of his remains. Escorts such as O’Sullivan were expected to help and comfort grieving relatives and attend funerals if requested by the family. One of their duties was also to remove the American flag from the casket and present it to the next of kin.22

Members of the American Legion Leo McMinimy Post No. 181 conducted the burial service for Blackney, honoring the legacy of the fallen, stating in the service: “We come to honor the memory of one who offered his life in the service of his Country; who has now enrolled in the great spirit army whose footfalls cause no sound. But in the memory of man, their souls go marching on, sustained by the pride of service, in time of national danger. Because of them our lives are free; because of them, our nation lives; because of them, the world is blessed. May the ceremonies of today deepen our reverence for our dead.”23

After the funeral for Blackney, W. M. Shaffer of the American Legion Post wrote to the Kansas City Quartermaster Depot on behalf of the Blackney family regarding O’Sullivan, the escort: “I think you should know how much help and comfort Sgt. James O’Sullivan was while here in Frankfort for the Blackney funeral. The Blackney family have personally expressed to me their appreciation of Sgt. O’Sullivan. They requested that he stay at their farm home while in Frankfort, and they reported that his presence, his attitude and his friendly manner were a great comfort to them.” In response, Lieutenant Colonel C.R. Yost, Chief of American Graves Registration Division at the Kansas City Quartermaster Depot, wrote: “We know Sergeant O’Sullivan will value your letter as a record of an occasion where he was proud to perform his duty not only as a representative of his Government, but also as a soldier honoring a fallen comrade.”24

On the first shipment of war dead from Europe aboard the Joseph V. Connelly in late 1947 was another servicemember from Frankfort who gave his life during the war. Private Pete L. Fiegener served in the 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division of the US Army, and was killed in action in Germany on October 16, 1944. He had been temporarily buried at the Henri-Chapelle Cemetery in Belgium. His remains were returned to his family via the Kansas City Quartermaster Depot on November 15, 1947, after arriving in New York on the Joseph V. Connelly. Fiegener was buried in his final resting place one day after Blackney.25

Some families dealt with the loss of multiple family members: the Sullivans from Iowa lost five brothers at once during the Battle of Guadalcanal aboard the USS Juneau. The Borgstrom family of Utah lost four brothers (including twins) within a six-month period in both the European and Pacific theaters as members of the US Army, US Marine Corps, and US Army Air Forces. Their remains were returned to Utah, and a two-day tribute was held on June 25–26, 1948, attended by officials including General Mark Clark, Commanding General of the Sixth Army, and Clarence E. Smith, principal of the high school attended by the Borgstrom siblings.26

The Mission Continues

For some families whose loved ones made the ultimate sacrifice in World War II, there were no funerals to attend, no graves to visit. For the family of those servicemembers who remained missing in action, whether due to their bodies never being recovered, or being one of the unidentifiable unknowns, the funerals and ceremonies of the return of the war dead did not provide some sense of closure. However, efforts to find the missing of World War II continue to this day.

Main office of the American Graves Registration Distribution Center No. 8, Chicago, Illinois, 10/13/1947. From the collection of The National WWII Museum 2013.538.021

After the end of the official World War II “Return of the Dead” program in 1951, the US Army Mortuary system continued the effort to recover and identify WWII missing, with recovery efforts often spurred by reports of remains discovered by local civilians. Over the decades, accounting efforts have continued, with servicemembers finally returned to their families and buried with full military honors. Today, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) continues the mission to “provide the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel to their families and the nation.”27

Nearly 72,000 Americans remain missing from World War II. DPAA continues to investigate WWII loss sites, and experts including historians, scientists, and anthropologists gather evidence, investigate any leads on missing Americans, and conduct archaeological excavations.28  Decades later, families continue to ask the question, “Where is my boy?” Through the efforts of the DPAA, some families finally do get an answer to that aching question, when over 80 years later, their loved one returns home.

Erica Lansberg is not an employee of DPAA, she supports DPAA through a partnership. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of DPAA, DoD, or its Components.

• 1

  Meyer Berger, “400,000 in Silent Tribute as War Dead Come Home,” The New York Times, October 27, 1947; Edward Steere and Thayer M. Boardman, Final Disposition of the World War II Dead, 1945-51 (Historical Branch, Office of the Quartermaster General, 1957), 666. In January 1948, while transporting empty coffins from New York to Antwerp, the Joseph V. Connolly caught fire. All crew members were rescued but the ship sank in tow. See Frank S. Adams, “All 46 Saved at Sea as Fire Destroys Army Transport,” The New York Times, January 13, 1948.

• 2

  Berger, “400,000 in Silent Tribute as War Dead Come Home.”

• 3

  “Tell Me About My Boy” (War Department, Quartermaster General, 1946). See also Steere and Boardman, Final Disposition of the World War II Dead, 39-40.

• 4

  Steere and Boardman, Final Disposition of the World War II Dead, v. Also, “America’s World War II Burial Program,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration, 2020, https://www.cem.va.gov/docs/wcag/history/WWII-Burial-Program-America.pdf. 

• 5

  See Michael Sledge, Soldier Dead: How We Recover, Identify, Bury, and Honor Our Military Fallen (Columbia University Press, 2005); Steven E. Anders, “With All Due Honors: A History of the Quartermaster Graves Registration Mission,” Quartermaster Professional Bulletin, September 1988.  The aftermath of World War I led to the establishment of permanent American cemeteries abroad, where the fallen, including Quentin Roosevelt, the son of President Theodore Roosevelt, were buried. President Roosevelt asked that his son be buried where he fell, stating, “Where the tree falls, there let it lie.” Overall, around 65% of the next of kin of World War I deceased chose repatriation of remains back to the United States.

• 6

  Steere and Boardman, Final Disposition of the World War II Dead, 687.

• 7

  See “World War II Accounting,” Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, DPAA Famweb, accessed July 9, 2025, https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaFamWebWWII. 

• 8

  Quartermaster Courage at Anzio,” U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum, last modified April 18, 2025, https://qmmuseum.army.mil/research/vignettes/quartermaster-courage-at-anzio.html; Anders, “With All Due Honors.”

• 9

  Anders, “With All Due Honors.”

• 10

  Sledge, Soldier Dead, 49-50; “Key Quartermasters in History,” U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum, last modified June 13, 2025, https://qmmuseum.army.mil/research/history-heritage/heritage/Key-Quartermasters-in-History.html.

• 11

  See Edward Steere, The Graves Registration Service in World War II (Historical Section, Office of the Quartermaster General, 1951), for more information about wartime graves registration.

• 12

  For more on Black Quartermasters, see Douglas Bristol, Jr., “What Can We Learn About World War II from Black Quartermasters?” The National WWII Museum, August 27, 2021, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/world-war-ii-black-quartermasters. 

• 13

  Mieke Kirkels, From Alabama to Margraten: The Story of War Veteran Jefferson Wiggins in the Segregated US Army during World War II (Amsterdam University Press, 2025), 77. See pages 65-96 for more on his experience in Margraten.

• 14

  For an example of American female casualties, three members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion of the Women’s Army Corps (WACs), Sgt. Dolores Browne, PFC Mary Barlow, and PFC Mary Bankston, were killed overseas after a fatal Jeep accident and are buried at Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. Another American woman is also buried there, Elizabeth Richardson, who served in the American Red Cross clubmobile unit, and was killed in a plane crash near Rouen, France. See James William Theres, “A Final Resting Place at America’s Most Hallowed Grounds: The Arlington 14 From the Six Triple Eight,” The National WWII Museum, September 15, 2021, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/6888th-battalion-arlington-cemetery; Phillip Walter Wellman, “4 women are buried among several thousand men at the US D-Day cemetery. These are their stories,” Stars and Stripes, June 4, 2024, https://www.stripes.com/special-reports/featured/d-day/2024-06-04/women-american-cemetery-normandy-14071727.html.

• 15

  “America’s World War II Burial Program,” vi & 10.

• 16

  See Tristan Krause,  “‘The Dramatic Sequel to the War’: The U.S. Army, the International Tracing Service, and the Search for the Missing, 1945-1950,” The Journal of Military History 89, no. 1 (2025); Seth Bernstein, “Burying the Alliance: Interment, Repatriation and the Politics of the Sacred in Occupied Germany,” Journal of Contemporary History 52, no. 3 (2017): 710-730, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009416644665. 

• 17

  Steere and Boardman, Final Disposition of the World War II Dead, vi & 651.

• 18

  For more on Trotter, see Emily K. Wilson, Mildred Trotter and the Invisible Histories of Physical and Forensic Anthropology (CRC Press, 2022).

• 19

  Steere and Boardman, Final Disposition of the World War II Dead, 663.

• 20

  For more on the distribution centers, see Steere and Boardman, Final Disposition of the World War II Dead, 653-687. For an example of commingled remains repatriated for burial in a national cemetery, see Jennifer Putnam, "What Happened to Lieutenant Curtis R. Biddick?" The National WWII Museum, February 9, 2024, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/what-happened-lieutenant-curtis-r-biddick. 

• 21

  Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF) for Lloyd Blackney (264446), Individual Deceased Personnel Files, Record Group 92: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, National Archives at St. Louis, digitized at https://catalog.archives.gov/id/330493308. 

• 22

  Steere and Boardman, Final Disposition of the World War II Dead, 672-674.

• 23

  “Services for Two Overseas Veterans,” The Frankfort Index, Nov 20, 1947, www.newspapers.com. 

• 24

  IDPF for Blackney.

• 25

  IDPF for Pete L. Fiegener (37240243), Individual Deceased Personnel Files, Record Group 92: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, National Archives at St. Louis; “Services for Two Overseas Veterans,” The Frankfort Index, Nov 20, 1947.

• 26

  Steere and Boardman, Final Disposition of the World War II Dead, 678-682.

• 27

  “Vision, Mission, Values,” Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, accessed July 9, 2025, https://www.dpaa.mil/About/Vision-Mission-Values/.

• 28

  For more on WWII recovery efforts through DPAA, see “World War II Accounting,” Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaFamWebWWII.