Remembering D-Day, June 6, 1944 "The Fallen Soldiers"

Haunted by the Dead: Grave Digging in WWII was a Job No Soldier Wanted​

The new soldiers arriving at Building 341 at Fort Warren, Wyoming, in November 1943 were blissfully unaware of what the future held.

Told they were a “GR outfit,” they speculated on what that meant. Maybe guerilla raiders, one suggested. They liked the sound of that. The next day, their commanding officer, Capt. Thomas A. Rowntree, snapped them to attention and informed the men that they were now the 612th Graves Registration Company.

“You could hear the sucking in of breaths and the gasps of disbelief and feel a sudden numbness,” recalled Pvt. Thomas J. Dowling. “It was a job that had to be done in war; it was certainly no disgrace, but it was something you always thought about being done by someone else.”

As the shocked men staggered back to their barracks to process the news, their disbelief turned to outrage. “This is what I was drafted for?” one soldier griped. “I ain’t going. I came to fight, not bury,” another vowed. “If there’s any burying to be done,” yet another said, “let somebody else do it.” A sergeant tried to mollify them, telling them they would be only supervising the burials, but that was no comfort. It was a restless, sleepless night in the barracks.
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