After World War I, the United States government established the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC). Its goal is to create, maintain, and manage cemeteries, monuments, memorials, and markers overseas. Today, ABMC manages 58 properties in 17 countries. Some of the memorials I have seen in France that ABMC manages are the Normandy American Cemetery, Point du Hoc Ranger Monument, and the Utah Beach Monument. All these sites are well managed and properly illustrate the sacrifice of the service members who died fighting for freedom here in Europe.
While the ABMC sites do an excellent job of remembering our loss, one site that is not maintained by ABMC and that we visited was the Baugnez Massacre Memorial at the Baugnez Crossroads in Malmedy, Belgium. I could not find who directly sponsored the building of the memorial, but both the nearby museum and the memorial were made to honor the victims of the massacre. The Baugnez Massacre Memorial on N62 is dedicated to the 84 U.S. Army artillerymen who were gunned down on 17 December 1944 after they surrendered to German forces during the Battle of the Bulge. Capt. Mills of the U.S. Army was moving his men and supporting units along a predetermined route and encountered the 1st SS Panzer division. Vicious fighting quickly broke out which led the Americans to surrender. Commander Joachim Peiper, the German commander, ordered his soldiers to murder, in violation of international law as well as common decency.
This memorial touched me like some of the other ones we have seen. The memorials created by the ABMC are remarkable and do a great job of celebrating the sacrifice our troops made in various battles. The memorials made by private groups or towns mean so much more. They reveal not only what Americans contributed but also how much local peoples appreciate those contributions, which illustrates to me that we fought on the right side making a positive difference. It has significant meaning when another group puts a memorial up and it is relieving to see that others still care about incidents that happened.
The Baugnez memorial is relatively modest: a simple wall with a small black stone depicting the name of each slain U.S. soldier. But its location– across the road from the field where the massacre happened—and the commitment of the local village to maintain the memorial speaks volumes about the tragedy itself and the way the locals remember and commemorate those who were lost. This unfamiliar incident will forever be broadcasted so people can learn the story.