Temporary American Cemetery at Pierrefonds

The United States’ practice of burying the remains of soldiers who fell on foreign soil in temporary graves and relocating them to permanent cemeteries after the fighting began in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. The job of exhumation, identification, and relocation fell to the Burial Corps of the Quartermaster Department. By the start of the United States’ involvement in World War I, the use of dog tags became standard for all service members. In August 1917, the United States established the Graves Registration Service to oversee the logistics of burial. Over the course of World War I, the Graves Registration Service supervised more than 73,000 temporary burials.

Courtesy of the American Battle Monuments Commission