Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial

 

Perched on the slopes of Mont Valérien just west of Paris, the Suresnes American Cemetery is the only American military cemetery from the First World War located  near the French capital. It holds the graves of more than 1,500 American service members, the vast majority of whom died in World War I. A smaller number of burials from World War II are also present, as well as the names of missing service members inscribed on the memorial walls.

The cemetery was established in 1917, while the war was still underway. As American Expeditionary Forces under General John J. Pershing entered the conflict, Suresnes was chosen as a burial site for soldiers who died in hospitals in and around Paris. Unlike the vast battlefield cemeteries in northeastern France—such as Meuse-Argonne or Aisne-Marne—Suresnes primarily became a resting place for those who succumbed to wounds or illness in rear-area medical facilities rather than those killed outright in combat.

When walking the rows of white marble headstones, one notices something striking: many dates of death fall not only in 1918 but also in January and February 1919—after the Armistice of November 11, 1918. The war had officially ended, yet American soldiers were still dying.

The reasons were both medical and epidemiological.

First, many of those late deaths were the result of wounds sustained in the final offensives of 1918. The Meuse-Argonne campaign, which began in late September and continued until the Armistice, was the largest operation in American military history up to that point. It was also extraordinarily costly. Soldiers gravely wounded in October and early November often lingered in hospitals for weeks or months before succumbing to infections, organ failure, or complications that modern medicine might treat more effectively today. Antibiotics did not yet exist. Even survivable injuries by today’s standards could become fatal in 1918.

Two Jewish soldiers, both named Harry, died after the First World War ended.

Second—and equally significant—was the influenza pandemic of 1918–1919, commonly known as the Spanish flu. The virus tore through military camps and transport ships with devastating speed. American forces in France were not spared. Crowded barracks, troop movements, and weakened immune systems made soldiers particularly vulnerable. Influenza frequently developed into pneumonia, which at the time had limited treatment options. Thousands of American troops died of influenza-related illness both during and after active combat operations.

In many cases, it is impossible to attribute late 1918 and early 1919 deaths exclusively to one cause. Some wounded soldiers, already weakened by injury, contracted influenza in hospitals. Others survived combat entirely but fell victim to disease before they could return home. The war may have ended, but the biological aftermath did not respect the Armistice.

After the war, families were given the option to repatriate remains to the United States or to leave their loved ones buried overseas. Those interred at Suresnes remain as part of the permanent American presence in France—a reminder that America’s entry into the Great War came late but at real cost.

The cemetery’s quiet hillside setting, overlooking Paris in the distance, contrasts sharply with the violence that brought these young men there. The rows are orderly, serene. Yet the dates on the stones tell a harsher truth: wars do not always end when the guns fall silent. For many buried at Suresnes, the fighting stopped in November 1918. The dying did not.