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Show LEGION HONORED Ai.L DEAD Organization Participated In Services at Final Interment of Men Brought Home. Army transports in which many of them went across eager for the Conflict Con-flict have carried back the last of the 45,000 A. E. F. dead, those relatives had requested to be returned to this country for permanent burial. The graves registration service of the army, which had the work of returning return-ing these bodies in charge, did an almost al-most superhuman task. But this sen-ice could not give the comradely human touch to the handling of these bodies after they reached the United States that seemed due them. No organization was so well suited to perform the last rights of honor and respect for these soldier dead us was the American Legion. The men Of the Legion took upon themselves the, obligation. Forty ship loads of bodies came to eastern ports during a period of two and a half years. It was not always possible to have an elaborate service, because the arrivals were too frequent, but in every instance there was at least a prayer by a chaplain of the Protestant, Catholic or Jewish faith, an address by a prominent citizen citi-zen or army officer and a rifle salute. A number of times, however, the services were noteworthy. President Harding delivered an address at services arranged by the Legion, May 23, 1921, when the Princess Matolka arrived with 451 bodies. General Pershing and Senator Lodge spoke when the Somme and the Wheaton arrived, ar-rived, July 10, 1921, with 7,000 dead. The last cargo of bodies arrived in Brooklyn, in April, 1922, on the Cam-bral. Cam-bral. On that occasion, the body of Private Charles W. Graves, Company M, One-hundred and Seventeenth infantry, in-fantry, Thirteenth division, was borne on a caisson through the streets, lined with silent throngs, to the army base, where simple ceremonies marked the close of the last public demonstration for America's returned dead. |