| Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial | |
| Body: | American Battle Monuments Commission |
| Use Dates: | 1944–1945 |
| Established: | (Completed) |
| Designer: | Murphy & Locraft, Washington, D.C. (Monument) Allyn R. Jennings of Oley, Pennsylvania (Landscaping) |
| Coordinates: | 49.1219°N 6.7175°W |
| Nearest Town: | Saint-Avold, Moselle, France |
| Total: | 10,481 |
| Commemorated: | 444 |
| By Country: | United States |
| By War: | World War II |
| Source: | ABMC website |
Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial is a Second World War American military war grave cemetery, located just outside Saint-Avold, Moselle, France. The cemetery, containing 10,481 American soldiers KIA (the second largest number of American burials in Europe, after the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery of World War I dead, with 14,246), covers 113.5acres, was dedicated in 1960. It is administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission.[1]
During and shortly after the war over 16,000 American casualties were interred across the Saint Avold region in France. Those interred at the Lorraine American Cemetery died mostly in the autumn of 1944 during the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine as the Americans sought to expel the Germans from fortress city of Metz and advance on the Siegfried Line during the latter stages of World War II. They were mainly part of the U.S. Third and Seventh Armies.
In the late 1940s many bodies from the Saint Avold region were repatriated to the US or concentrated at Lorraine.
The cemetery's headstones are arranged in nine plots forming an elliptical design ending with an overlook feature. A memorial has ceramic operations maps with narratives and service flags. Either side of the memorial are Tablets of the Missing commemorating 444 soldiers missing in action (rosettes mark those since recovered and identified).
Anecdote: Sheltered from view, hidden by trees in a place a little apart, is a small vegetable garden created in 1962 by Bouaroua Aissa, gardener of the cemetery. More than 60 years later, this garden still exists and is maintained by another gardener who perpetuates Aissa's work.