D-Day Burials in Gettysburg National Cemetery

General Eisenhower's message to the Allied Expeditionary Force before D-Day, June 6th, 1944.

Library of Congress

Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force—you are about to embark upon the Great Crusade

With these words, General Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed those who were about to make their way towards the shores of German occupied France, heading towards a fate and a destiny unknown. After years of planning, countless hours of worry and fret, and one final gut-wrenching decision by Eisenhower on whether or not to launch the attack itself, the invasion of France and the liberation of a continent which had only known the darkness of Nazi oppression for four years was about to begin.

On June 6, 1944, over 160,000 of those soldiers, sailors, and airmen crossed the English Channel by water and by air, dropping and landing in Normandy. That day saw incredible fighting and incredible loss. By the day’s end, they had gained a foothold in occupied France, from which the liberation of a continent and the final defeat of Nazi Germany could begin. While figures are not precise, roughly 10,000 Allied troops became casualties—killed, wounded, or missing in action. For the Americans, there were at least 2,500 killed in action.

Of the over 500 World War II casualties buried in the Gettysburg National Cemetery, thirteen of them lost their lives on D-Day. Their stories show ordinary individuals, fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands—all from Pennsylvania.

There are those like Clairus Riggs, a twenty-one-year-old coal miner from Cambria County, who, as a member of Company B, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, was designated to attack at Omaha Beach roughly 30 minutes after H-Hour on the morning of June 6. That morning, Riggs was on the SS Empire Javelin off the shores of France, where he and his comrades ate steak, bread, and gravy while hearing Eisenhower’s Order of the Day read aloud. As the men entered their landing crafts, they were sent through the choppy surf towards the beach. When their ramp went down, German machine gun fire tore apart their ranks. In Riggs’s 30-man boat, 28 were killed, including Clairus.

Clairus was not the only member of the 29th division who was killed on D-Day and reinterred at Gettysburg. Private First Class Richard Brandtonies, a 19-year-old from Washington County and a member of Company A, is buried in the same section as Riggs. Additionally, SSgt William Laffin of Clinton County, PFC Byron Stanton of Shamokin, and PFC George Hawn of Allegheny County, all also from Company B, rest forevermore under the soil of their home state near their comrades.

Off the shores of Utah Beach, Luzerne County native Joseph Fedish was aboard LCT-538, making his way to France. Fedish had joined the army in 1940, leaving his job as a baker. After training in field artillery, he was eventually sent to England in January 1944, joining Battery B, 29th Field Artillery Battalion, 4th Infantry Division. Fedish’s job was to drive an M-7 tank onto Utah Beach, providing heavy firepower against the Germans. On the approach to the beach that morning, however, Fedish’s landing craft struck a mine in the channel. His Battery lost 22 wounded and 37 killed, with Fedish among the latter.

Elsewhere that morning, the men of the 146th Engineer Combat Battalion landed on Omaha Beach, ordered to clear beach obstacles for heavy equipment coming ashore. Amongst the battalion were Private First Class Alfred Augustine and Private First Class Howard Nutt, both of whom were killed as they attempted to open a path for coming waves of men and equipment, including the First Infantry Division. Among the ranks of that division were Tec/5 William Copeland, Private First Class Forrest Rice, and Private Elmer Warman, all Pennsylvania natives killed on D-Day. With the mass of men and equipment on the beach that morning, Private First Class Frank Kvasnosky, part of his division’s military police unit, was killed while directing vehicles ashore amidst the confusion of battle. Kvasnosky was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his actions.

These men and their sacrifices embodied what Eisenhower meant when he wrote of a “great crusade.” They gave their lives to liberate a continent ruled by tyranny, in turn helping to fight tyranny everywhere. That their families chose to have them buried in Gettysburg, a town which Eisenhower would one day call home, within the shadow of where Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address no less, only further reminds us that the “great crusade” of which Eisenhower spoke was rooted in the same democracy which Lincoln described in his famed remarks of November 19, 1863.

Below is a listing of D-Day casualties buried in Gettysburg National Cemetery. While the list shows those who lost their lives on June 6, 1944, it does not include those who died in the days, weeks, and months to come, as the Allied Expeditionary Force pushed inward toward the liberation of Western Europe. In addition to these thirteen, hundreds of thousands more Americans gave their lives in the days that followed June 6, 1944.

D-Day Burials in the Gettysburg National Cemetery, with Grave Locations

• Alfred Augustine, 146th Engineer Combat Battalion, Section 2, Row 5, Grave 34
• Howard Nutt, 146 Engineer Combat Battalion, Section 1, Row 3, Grave 3
• Joseph Fedish, Tec/5, 29th Field Artillery Battalion, 4th Infantry Division, Section 2, Row 4, Grave 33
• William J. Copeland, 18th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, Bronze Star, Section 3, Row 9, Grave 12
• Frank John Kvansnosky, PFC, Military Police, 1st Infantry Division, Section 3, Row 3, Grave 19
• Forrest Rice, PFC, 1st Infantry Division, Section 3, Row 2, Grave 14
• Elmer Warman, Private, 1st Infantry Division, Section 2, Row 5, Grave 4
• Richard Brandtonies, Company A, 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, Section 2, Row 4, Grave 1
• Clairus Riggs, PFC, Company B, 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, Section 2, Row 2, Grave 41
• Byron Leonard Stanton, PFC, Company B, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, Section 2, Row 2, Grave 50
• George Allen Hawn, PFC, Company B, 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, Section 2, Row 5, Grave 9
• William C. Laffin, SSgt., Company B, 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, Section 1, Row 1, Grave 2
• John Clister, Private, CMP, 29th Infantry Division, Section 1, Row 3, Grave 8

Duration:

4 minutes, 9 seconds

PFC Clairus L. Riggs—a native of Cambria County, Pennsylvania—is one of 13 soldiers who were killed on D-Day who are buried in the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Riggs fell in the waters off of Omaha Beach in the early hours of June 6, 1944, and is one of several casualties from the 116th Infantry Regiment that day buried in Gettysburg. Park Ranger Jon Tracey brings us Riggs’s story and reminds us of the enduring significance of D-Day.