Gen. Roosevelt is buried among 2,000 fallen Yanks
Battle noise furnishes accompaniment to ‘Taps’ at cemetery near Normandy village
By Henry T. Gorrell, United Press staff writer
Sainte-Mère-Église, France –
The body of Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, who died of a heart attack Wednesday night, rested in a simple grave today among those of 2,000 fallen comrades in the U.S. Army cemetery outside this liberated Normandy village.
As the body was lowered into a white-canvas-lined grave after an impressive military ceremony at twilight last evening a final salute was fired by a rifle squad picked from thee companies the general had led in the first D-Day assault on the beaches.
The rumble of gunfire from the front interpolated the rites and furnished an accompaniment to the muffled notes of the bugle sounding “Taps.”
The general’s son, Capt. Quentin Roosevelt of the “Fighting First” Division and his buddy and aide, Lt. Marcus O. Stevenson of San Antonio, Texas, stood solemnly at attention during the ceremonies.
Around them were more than a dozen high-ranking generals; several hundred doughboys; and numerous French who had gathered at the cemetery to honor the dead American soldiers as part of the Bastille Day observance.
The rites were conducted by two Army chaplains, Col. James A. Bryant of Crystal Springs, Mississippi, and Lt. Col. P. C. Schroder of Flushing, New York (former pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Messiah).