This summer, my family visited France to commemorate the centennial of the death of First Lt. George Baldwin McCoy, my great-grand-uncle. He was killed on July 20, 1918, leading a charge against German machine guns during the Second Battle of the Marne. He was 25. I stood next to my father in the wheat field before dawn while he peered at a laminated map using a flashlight, on the 100th anniversary of when Lieutenant McCoy’s unit launched their attack, down to the minute. After a long moment of silence and reflection, we loaded back into the car and drove forward a few hundred yards to the farmhouse where Lieutenant McCoy was mortally wounded. We then retraced his steps to the field hospital, and then found the graveyard where my ancestor was temporarily buried. Through my father’s research, we had learned that my great-great-grandfather Judge Walter Irving McCoy campaigned to bring home the bodies of his son and other fallen Americans. When he finally succeeded, the Army accidentally chopped the feet off Lieutenant McCoy’s corpse with a shovel, making the family fear that the corpse was not actually their son. A furious Judge McCoy proceeded to raise hell, prompting congressional hearings and an investigation by the Army. After they determined that they had indeed sent the correct body, my great-grand-uncle was interred in Arlington National Cemetery. — Alexander McCoy, New York, N.Y.

Tracking the History of an Ancestor’s Death

When I was growing up, my grandfather told me that Pfc. John A. Olien, my great-uncle, was killed by German machine gunners, but the family never learned of the circumstances. In 1918, they celebrated the armistice on Nov. 11 not knowing John had been killed. Notification of his death arrived in early December. I eventually found the history of John’s unit in the University of Michigan library. He charged the German lines with his captain and a handful of other men. They captured three outposts before they realized they were surrounded on three sides. His captain was killed, and John was critically wounded, lying on the battlefield, tended by a fellow soldier until both were captured by the Germans. John died while German medics were taking him to an aid station. In 1921, my family chose to bring John’s remains home to be interred on the highest hill of a rural cemetery near New Richmond, Wis. When I was young, I visited the grave site with my grandfather on Memorial Day, on John’s birthday, on the anniversary of his death and every Nov. 11. In August 2017, a French guide led me to the spot where John was killed during the Meuse-Argonne offensive in 1918. — David Olien, Madison, Wis.

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Returning to Alsace