There are certain aspects of war which have been written about endlessly. Memoirs by infantrymen, for example, abound. Ditto paratroopers, fighter pilots, bomber crewmen, snipers, commandos, submariners, etc. There are other areas, however, which are neglected or in some cases, totally unexplored. CROSSES IN THE WIND covers a subject which, up 'til now, I had only seen briefly examined by the legendary WW2 journalist Ernie Pyle: Graves Registration. The guys who had to collect the dead, identify them, and bury their remains. Joe Shoeman was well qualified to paint this picture, having commanded a G.R. company in WW2 (European Theater) which buried 21,000 American soldiers and probably two or three times that many Germans.
Shomon takes the reader from his training in the States, to deployment to England, and finally to France just after D-Day. He explains how the unit operated and what its responsibilities were, which included the creation of both temporary and permenent military cemeteries. He explains what tasks the individual soldiers in the company had, and some of the difficulties they faced -- internally, from interfering superiors, and externally, from German bombs and shells. (In one instance he records a massive night air raid by the Luftwaffe which blew up some fuel and ammo dumps near his position.) He takes the reader from Normandy to the end of the war, when much additional work was done locating bodies, identifying and burying them, and erecting some of the largest military cemeteries in Europe. I was struck, and moved, by his pride in his unit and by the reverence he and his men had for the dead. They took everything they did with the utmost seriousness and never seemed to become cynical, taking great care to produce cemeteries, even temporary ones, of the greatest aesthetic beauty possible: they went as far as to obtain truckloads of gravel, enormities of seeds and flowers, and all other items necessary to beautify the cemeteries. They even created grave sites for dead Germans, though they were somewhat less ornate and always kept well separated from Allied dead. His greatest passion, and that of his men, was in doing everything possible to identify unknown soldiers. Dental records, photographs, fingerprints and various other methods were used, including the rehydration of fingertips to get prints, and when these sometimes failed, the unit did not give up but sidelined the case for additional investigation when time permitted. The respect an army shows its fallen goes a long way to explaining what kind of values it has -- witness the dead of the present-day Russian army in Ukraine, abandoned and left to rot.
Now I would be lying if I said the book had the detail that I wanted. It's under 200 pages (a lengthy appendix gives it a deceptive thickness), and Shomon provides too much poorly written historical background, and not enough detail about what he and his company did. If memory serves, he explicitly states in the opening that he doesn't want to go into too much anecdotal detail because it would be too painful for those who lost loved ones in the war to read about. Since he wrote this book in 1947, just two years after the end of the war, I completely understand that, but it left me with the feeling that there was a great deal left on the table. Gruesome details kind of go hand in hand with war memoirs, and I would think most especially in this case.
That having been said, Shomon's picture of the Graves Registration companies in war is just about the only one we have of which I'm aware, and this little book is highly readable and quite informative despite its omissions and modest size. It's fascinating to think that the graves of which he speaks are still standing and still just as meticulously tended in 2022 as they were in 1946.
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