Retropolis

After World War I, U.S. families were asked if they wanted their dead brought home. Forty thousand said yes.

In May 1921, President Harding paid tribute to a ship carrying 5,000 fallen Americans returned for burial



A next-of-kin response card asking for the return of the remains of Pvt. James Argiroplos, who was killed near Hébuterne in France during World War I. (National Archives)

By Michael E. Ruane
May 30, 2021 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

In 1919, when Theodore J. Argiroplos of Keyser, W. Va., received the government post card asking if he wanted the body of his brother shipped home for burial, he entered “yes” on the appropriate line.

Pvt. James Argiroplos, 24, of the 80th Division’s 317th Infantry Regiment, had been killed on Aug. 15, 1918, near a place called Hébuterne in France. And he, and thousands of other dead Americans, were eligible to be buried in an American cemetery in France, or brought home.

So in a massive and little-remembered project after World War I, the United States sent out 74,000 questionnaire cards asking families what they wanted, and then tried to fulfill their wishes.

Sixty-three-thousand answers were received by January 1920, according to historian Lisa M. Budreau. ... And between 1919 and 1922 the government identified, located and exhumed about 44,000 bodies and shipped them home for burial — many to the Washington region.

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French and American soldiers salute at the funeral of one of their comrades at base hospital No. 17, Dijon, France, on Sept. 6, 1918. (National Archives and Records Administration)

By Michael Ruane
Michael E. Ruane is a general assignment reporter who also covers Washington institutions and historical topics. He has been a general assignment reporter at the Philadelphia Bulletin, an urban affairs and state feature writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a Pentagon correspondent at Knight Ridder newspapers. Twitter https://twitter.com/michaelruane