Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

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henryj4123
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Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

#1

Post by henryj4123 » 09 Jul 2012, 20:17

Does anyone have records or information about German soldiers buried at Gorron Cemetery in France(August 1944)? This was a temporary cemetery for American soldiers run by the 603rd Graves Registration Company. There was also an "enemy" cemetery(#2) with 6 plots nearby. The Americans had 754 soldiers buried there and all that weren't repatriated back to the United States after the war were transferred to Brittany American Cemetery in St. James, France. I am particularly interested in locating information about a German soldier, originally thought to be an American and was labeled as Unknown X-3. This soldier was found together with Private James Bowman, a member of my grandfathers unit. Private Bowman was a member of an M-8 Armored Car reconnaissance crew, their vehicle was blown up when they sustained a direct hit to the gas tank. The reason I am interested in this soldier(X-3) is because the American soldier in the turret with Pvt. Bowman is still considered missing in action(technically non-recoverable) and I'm wondering if there is any chance it could be this soldier. If anyone has any information about this or could give me any advice on how I could obtain information I would appreciate it. Pvt Bowman's IDPF shows that a reprocessing report for X-3 says that the soldier was completely clothed in a German uniform and was reburied as a German Unknown in Plot F, Row 1, Grave 9.

I have searched the National Archives in College Park, Maryland for information about this soldier. All I found out about the German cemetery was a map of how the plots were laid out.

I also requested the IDPF for X-3 from the US Army and was told that once the body was determined "German" the records were transferred to them.

Does anyone know how to find information about this soldier or know where I can look for information?

Larry D.
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Re: Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

#2

Post by Larry D. » 10 Jul 2012, 18:44

Have you tried contacting this organization? It's responsible for all matters concerning deceased Wehrmacht personnel and maintains scores and scores of cemeteries full of German military war dead worldwide.

Graves information (especially helpful for obtaining a few details on non-officer personnel):
Gräbernachweis des Volksbundes
Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.
http://www.volksbund.de/graebersuche/content_suche.asp
[Tip for North Americans: when signing up on this site, our North American addresses do not interface with the site’s Abschrift block. This can be overcome by omitting our state or province. Just fill in street, house number, Zip code and city.]


henryj4123
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Re: Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

#3

Post by henryj4123 » 12 Jul 2012, 19:59

Larry-

Thanks for your suggestion. I was able to navigate through the website good enough using a translation website to find a couple e-mail addresses for the organization. I e-mailed them with my question and got a reply stating that they are currently receiving many requests and don't know who long it will take to get an answer.

Larry D.
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Re: Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

#4

Post by Larry D. » 12 Jul 2012, 20:38

Yes, it takes WASt a couple of weeks at best to generate a reply.

L.

tlfrantz
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Re: Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

#5

Post by tlfrantz » 16 Oct 2013, 21:06

FROM CANADIAN NEWSPAPER -NATIONAL POST
Written by: Sarah Boesveld | 16/09/13 6:39 PM ET

Canadian family hopes to have found long-lost relative who fought in Second World War buried in German cemetery.

For almost 60 years, PFC Lawrence S. Gordon’s death was an “open wound” for the southern Saskatchewan family that “never healed,” his nephew said. But now, his family believes that they may finally have found his remains after he was mistakenly buried as an unknown soldier in a German cemetery.
One by one, the French forensic team pulled bits of bone from six fibreglass boxes that had been locked away since the end of the Second World War. Photos were snapped and measurements taken. Medicine Hat, Alta., lawyer Lawrence R. Gordon looked on from six feet away

t wasn’t until halfway through Friday’s exhumation of unknown United States Army soldier ‘X-3,’ buried in a German grave in France, when the forensic team scrutinized a jawbone that Mr. Gordon went from nervous to elated: His uncle and namesake — a man he had never met but who might be there, in bits in those boxes — was missing the back two teeth on his lower right jaw when he signed up with the U.S. military a month after Pearl Harbor (he had been working at a ranch in Wyoming and became one of few Canadians enlisted with the American troops).

“There was a very big lump in my throat until you could visibly see that that tooth was missing,” Mr. Gordon said, the detail confirming, to him at least, that his uncle, who died in a blast in Normandy as part of a car crew on Aug. 13, 1944, was now found. “It was incredible.”

For almost 60 years, PFC Lawrence S. Gordon’s death was an “open wound” for the southern Saskatchewan family that “never healed,” his nephew said. In the years before his death in 1989, the young Mr. Gordon’s father would wonder aloud about his second youngest brother, whose flame-licked wallet packed with pictures of the old farmhouse was the only item returned to the family from their lost son. Letters written to the U.S. Army offered no clues, and so Mr. Gordon made a vow that he would track down the remains of his long-lost uncle.

It had started as a promise to merely visit his grave,” the father of two said by phone from Rennes, France, where he travelled last week to be there for the exhumation.

Initial information from the U.S. Army led him, in 2000, to the Brittany American Cemetery in Saint-James, France, where 4,410 of Second World War American soldiers, many of whom fought in the Normandy and Brittany campaigns of 1944, are laid to rest. His name was posted on a wall dedicated to unknown soldiers, but the remains were nowhere to be found.


Twelve years later, in March 2012, Mr. Gordon received a call from Jed Henry, a man in Middleton, Wisconsin who had been researching the Reconnaissance Company of the 32nd Armored Regiment of 3rd Armored Division, in which his grandfather served.

“Jed, at that time, pointed out to me that there were 44 that had been killed in action from the reconnaissance unit from the Second World War — they had recovered 43 bodies and only one of them was missing,” Mr. Gordon said. “Jed’s goal was to find my uncle, so needless to say I was quick to endorse that.”


NOTE: Cannot include url because the monitor rejected my previous post , which included the link. Google the title of the article and it pops up.

Cheers. Todd

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Dwight Pruitt
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Re: Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

#6

Post by Dwight Pruitt » 19 Oct 2013, 02:35

Well done. Thank you.

history1
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Re: Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

#7

Post by history1 » 19 Oct 2013, 10:04

tlfrantz wrote:[...] NOTE: Cannot include url because the monitor rejected my previous post , which included the link. Google the title of the article and it pops up.
Cheers. Todd
Here it is (don´t understand where the problem was to include the link):
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/09/16 ... -cemetery/

henryj4123
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Re: Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

#8

Post by henryj4123 » 20 Oct 2013, 06:40

Guys-

Thanks for the replies. I was the one who originally posted this message and I was in France last month when they removed the body. Hopefully the results on our soldier will be in before Christmas. This is an incredible example of countries coming together for the good of a soldier.

Jed

history1
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Re: Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

#9

Post by history1 » 20 Oct 2013, 08:59

Thanks, Jed, for your work and effort!
It´s also good that nowadays there isn´t much left from former anatagonism of WWII. Even former soviet union archives does now work together with those of Austria and Germany. May this be in future too!

Regards,
Roman

weedon
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Re: Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

#10

Post by weedon » 23 Mar 2014, 13:23

I live in France near to the sites of the temporary burial grounds near to Gorron.

Photos of the memorial head stones can be seen using these two links:-

http://i89.servimg.com/u/f89/13/29/79/87/photo_20.jpg
http://r19.imgfast.net/users/1914/10/12 ... cf0313.jpg

Or you can search in Google Images for Stele Gorron.

Hope this helps.

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Bodger
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Re: Unknown German soldier buried at Gorron, France Cemetery

#11

Post by Bodger » 25 Mar 2014, 09:44

A couple of photos of the cemetery at Gorron. The reference to Laval on the second photo is incorrect.
Attachments
gorron11.jpg
gorron10.jpg

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