11/11/2025

In the aftermath of World War I, the United States sought a profound way to honor the countless American soldiers who had given their lives but whose identities were lost forever in the chaos of battle. On February 4, 1921, Congress passed a resolution approving the burial of an unidentified American soldier from the war at Arlington National Cemetery, a symbolic tribute to the "Unknown" representing all who perished without recognition. This set in motion a meticulous and solemn process to select and return those remains from the battlefields of Europe.

By September 29, 1921, the U.S. War Department issued orders for the Quartermaster Corps to identify suitable remains from among the unidentified Americans buried in France. Working in close coordination with French authorities and the U.S. Navy, a team was dispatched to exhume four bodies, one from each of the major American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) cemeteries: Aisne-Marne, Meuse-Argonne, Somme, and St. Mihiel. These locations were chosen to ensure the selection represented the breadth of the American fight across the Western Front. Each body was rigorously examined by medical experts to confirm it belonged to an AEF soldier who had died of combat wounds, with no dog tags, personal effects, or other clues to identity. The goal was absolute anonymity, a true everyman of the war.

Once verified, the remains underwent careful mortuary preparation and were placed into four identical oaken caskets, each lined with white silk and encased in matching shipping boxes adorned with American flags. This uniformity was deliberate, mirroring the practices of Allied nations like Britain and France, to prevent any bias in the final choice and to symbolize the thousands of unknowns still resting in European soil.

On October 24, 1921, exactly one week before Armistice Day, the four caskets arrived by truck at the city hall in Châlons-sur-Marne, a scarred town near the front lines that had endured heavy fighting. In a hushed ceremony under a canopy of French and American flags, the task of selection fell to Sergeant Edward F. Younger of the U.S. Army's 50th Infantry Regiment. Younger, a battle-hardened veteran wounded in combat and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for valor, approached the caskets with a spray of white roses, a poignant gift from a local Frenchman who had lost two sons in the war. As a French military band played a somber hymn, Younger circled the caskets several times, lost in thought, before gently placing the roses on the third one. With a salute, he marked his choice, the Unknown Soldier of the United States. U.S. and French officials, including generals and diplomats, paid their respects as the roses remained affixed to the selected casket, destined to accompany it across the Atlantic.

The three unchosen caskets were quietly reinterred in the Aisne-Marne Cemetery, their secrets preserved. The chosen one was then borne in a horse-drawn caisson through the streets of Châlons-sur-Marne to the railroad station, where it was loaded onto a special funeral train provided by the French government. The journey continued through Paris—overnight under the vigilant watch of a U.S. Army honor guard—and on to the port of Le Havre, with crowds of French civilians and soldiers lining the tracks to offer silent tributes, flowers, and prayers.

There, on October 25, 1921, at precisely 2:20 p.m., the remains were transferred to the custody of the U.S. Navy aboard the cruiser USS Olympia (CL-15), the storied ship that had served as Admiral Dewey's flagship during the Spanish-American War and was now repurposed for this sacred voyage. The transfer unfolded with profound pageantry at the dock: French Minister of Pensions André Maginot affixed the nation's highest honor, the Cross of the Legion of Honor, to the casket. A detail of six sailors and two Marines relieved the Army escort, piping the casket aboard as it was carried to the ship's stern, blanketed in wreaths, flowers, and a small box of sacred earth from the battlefields of France. Dignitaries, schoolchildren, and throngs of onlookers added their own floral offerings, while the French destroyer division and other vessels fired salutes. With flags at half-mast, Olympia slipped its moorings, escorted by the destroyer USS Reuben James and six French warships, beginning the 14-day transatlantic crossing.

The voyage was arduous, battered by the remnants of a hurricane with towering waves, howling winds, and relentless rain that tested the crew and the 38-man Marine honor guard led by Captain Graves B. Erskine. They stood unwavering watches over the casket day and night, a testament to the soldier's unyielding service. Olympia burned through over 950 tons of coal before reaching the Virginia Capes on November 7, 1921, and docking at the Washington Navy Yard on November 9 amid a flotilla of escorting U.S. warships.

From there, the Unknown Soldier's procession continued: offloaded in a brief but moving ceremony, transferred to Army bearers, and conveyed to the Capitol Rotunda for a day in state. On Armistice Day, November 11, 1921, he was laid to rest in Arlington's Tomb of the Unknowns, a crypt that would later welcome unknowns from other wars, but forever enshrining this first guardian as the emblem of America's sacrifice. In that single set of remains, selected so deliberately from Europe's fields of sorrow, the nation found a timeless story of valor, loss, and unbreakable resolve.

J.J. Brookshire

Master Sergeant (Retired)

TIS: 9 May 1983 - 31 August 2025