The Evening Star (May 29, 1946)
$92 million approved to start plan returning U.S. war dead
A $92,500,000 fund to help the War Department start returning to this country the bodies of war dead was approved today by the House Appropriations Committee.
The $92,500,000 is the initial allotment toward an estimated total cost of $200,000,000 for recovering and reinterring the bodies of America’s war dead abroad, both military and civilian.
An estimated 275,000 dead, Army officials told the committee, will be buried in either national or private cemeteries in this country or in national or private cemeteries abroad, the decisions to be made by the next of kin.
In cases where relatives request the return of bodies for private burial in this country, the War Department will pay $50 toward actual burial costs in addition to furnishing a grave marker, a flag, a military escort and a firing squad for burial services.
Present plans call for bodies to be brought to New York or San Francisco for transferal to the cemeteries designated.
Army spokesmen expressed belief that most of the bodies will be returned to this country. They indicated that funds may be sought later to pay the cost of pilgrimages of mothers abroad to visit graves of men buried overseas.
Regardless of rank, all bodies will be buried in identical caskets.
“We are operating on the theory that they are all absolutely equal,” Brig. Gen, G. A. Horkan told the committee. “In other words, they were created equal and we feel they should be treated equal in death.”
Gen. Horkan said a poll of the wishes of next of kin to determine which bodies shall be returned to this country will be undertaken within the next few months.