Three Fairfax County Public School teachers paid tribute to the American soldiers who dedicated their lives during the D-Day invasion by laying a wreath at the World War II Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Normandy, France, April 4.
Mary Kate Green, second grade teacher at Woodley Hills Elementary School, and Shawn DeRose, acting assistant principal and history teacher at J.E.B. Stuart High School, traveled to Great Britain over spring break.
The two teachers visited Eric Welch, a history teacher at J.E.B. Stuart who is currently teaching at the Birkdale School in Sheffield, England, on a Fulbright Scholarship. They chaperoned the Birkdale School students to Normandy, France, on a field trip to honor the 60th anniversary of the D-Day Invasion.
At the conclusion of the fighting in Normandy, there were more than 10 American cemeteries on the battlefield, with hundreds of small burial grounds and isolated graves. The American Battle Monuments Commission (AMBC) repatriated at least 60 percent of these burials back to the United States, and concentrated the remaining casualties into two main cemeteries; one in Normandy and another in Britanny.
The Normandy American Cemetery has 9,387 burials of US service men and women. Of this number, some 307 are unknowns, three are Medal of Honor winners and four are women. In addition there are 33 pairs of brothers buried side by side.