Repatriation of The Dead
After they returned home, the Polar Bear veterans lobbied their state and Federal governments to obtain funds and the necessary approvals to retrieve the bodies of more than 125 U.S. soldiers who were known to have been left behind in North Russia. Hampered by the lack of diplomatic recognition between the United States and the Soviet Union, it took many years before they finally received permission. An expedition under the auspices of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) was successful in organizing and conducting a recovery mission in the autumn of 1929 that found, identified and brought out the remains of 86 U.S. soldiers. Another dozen remains of ANREF soldiers were shipped by the Soviet Union to the U.S. in 1934, which reduced the number of U.S soldiers still buried in North Russia to about 30. The remains of 56 ANREF soldiers were eventually re-buried in plots surrounding the Polar Bear Monument by sculptor Leon Hermant in White Chapel Cemetery, Troy, Michigan.
Read more about this topic: Polar Bear Expedition
Famous quotes containing the words the dead and/or dead:
“Wild Bill was indulging in his favorite pastime of a friendly game of cards in the old No. 10 saloon. For the second time in his career, he was sitting with his back to an open door. Jack McCall walked in, shot him through the back of the head, and rushed from the place, only to be captured shortly afterward. Wild Bill’s dead hand held aces and eights, and from that time on this has been known in the West as “the dead man’s hand.””
—State of South Dakota, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Wha lies here?
I, Johnny Doo.
Hoo, Johnny, is that you?
Ay, man, but a’m dead noo.”
—Anonymous. “Johnny Doo,” from Geoffrey Grigson’s Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs, Faber & Faber (1977)