French Guard Last Resting Places of Yanks
 

Paris -- Americans will have no trouble in finding the graves of relatives who fell on the field of battle in France, after they
obtain from the graves registry bureau the location of the interment. The French are taking excellent care of the last resting
places of Americans. Crosses with name plates have been erected over the burial places of every identified man that has fallen. Usually the steel helmet of the man -- and it generally has his name written on the hatband -- has been placed on the grave, together with his bayonet, thrust into the earth as a sort of foot stone. Often his canteen and cartridge belt have been hung from the cross, and sometimes papers describing his identity and how he fell have been placed in a corked bottle, the neck of which is imbedded in the earth.

There is no danger that French civilians in the regions where the men are buried will appropriate any of these articles as souvenirs. Four long years of war, with the discarded equipment of Germans, British and French scattered over the terrain has purged them of all desire or longing for souvenirs. Civilians returning to their shell-shattered homes have found their front gardens converted into a cemetery of three or four graves. But the graves have not been molested, on the other hand, they are kept up by civilians who keep the edges trimmed and a spray of flowers or leaves on the mound. Even the children respect the burial places, and while they may pick up bayonets or grenades that they find in the fields, they never
touch the equipment placed on the graves.

~source: Iowa City Citizen, Friday, December 13, 1918