Famous WWII Graves of Arlington | History Traveler Episode 124

[Music] well right now i am walking through what is really one of my favorite places in washington dc this is arlington national cemetery and i love to come here because it's a good place to reflect on the the service and the sacrifice of men and women from the past and it's also a really good place like any cemetery to learn a little bit more about history so i've done a few arlington videos before in this one i wanted to focus specifically on some of the more uh well-known or famous figures from world war ii everybody here has value and worth and everybody has served or contributed in some way but i want to focus on on some of the people who you might know and maybe a few that you don't [Music] all right well i am starting off in one of the distant corners of arlington national cemetery to visit the grave of general jonathan wainwright this man was the senior commander of u.s forces in the philippines whenever the japanese attacked on april 9th of 1942 so him and thousands of others escaped to the island of corrigador they hid out there for about a month and then uh eventually running out of food and supplies they were forced to surrender wainwright was taken prisoner was forced to endure the baton death march and spent three years in a japanese prison camp was there until he was uh liberated on uh in august of 1945. he was japan's highest ranking prisoner and was called the hero of baton and corrigador and uh for this he received the medal of [Music] honor all right uh we've just got started and i'm already getting off on a tangent i'm assuming that this wainwright might be the dad of uh of jonathan wainwright but this is so crazy this caught my eye behind this grave look at what's going on here there is a dang tree that has grown up and is upending this stone how crazy is that well if you've ever heard of the flying tigers in world war ii then you might have heard of claire chennault claire chanel was born in 1893 and was a pilot during world war one and then whenever the sino-japanese war broke out he went to china in 1937 to help train the the chinese air force so they could defend themselves and then in 1940 he organized a group of volunteer american aviators that became known as the flying tigers yeah they ended up getting incorporated into the 14th air force later on whenever the u.s entered the war but yeah here's the grave of claire chennault here's a guy that you maybe have never heard of but really should have this is benjamin o davis senior and he was the very first african-american general in the u.s military volunteered in the spanish-american war and fought in the philippine american war rose through the ranks and franklin d roosevelt promoted him to brigadier general in 1940. now here's something else that's really interesting if you go just up the hill well here's the grave of his son benjamin o davis jr benjamin o davis jr was in the 99th pursuit squadron which was the first all-black american air unit so he was one of the tuskegee airmen and he became the first black general in the us air force so quite the the interesting story between this father and son duo here is the grave of william j donovan who was a major general as you can see there and he was awarded the medal of honor in world war one he also received the distinguished service cross the distinguished service medal and the national security medal he's the first person to have received all four of those uh the reason that i'm including him in a world war ii video is he is also the founding director of the office of strategic services which was the predecessor to the cia and i saw that his nickname is wild bill i honestly don't know enough about william donovan to know why he earned that nickname but i'm going to have to look him up and learn more about him so if you take an interest in the naval portion of world war ii and i don't know why you wouldn't uh you will probably find the next few graves that i'm visiting to uh to be of interest oh well i just walked all the way down that dang hill and then had to walk all the way back up because i realized that i had just passed up the grave of william leahy who to my knowledge is the very first person to get a fifth star or at least the first admiral to get a fifth star admiral leahy was on the staff for franklin delano roosevelt and you can see him in a lot of pictures where there's a lot of dignitaries you know with churchill and uh and such one quick thing about leahy he was very instrumental in having the normandy invasion delayed until 1944. there was a big push to have it done in 1943 which would have been disastrous but he really pushed roosevelt to wait until 1944. oh and his wife died in 1942. oh man so yeah he was going through a lot yeah but there's the grave of admiral leahy oh dang they flat put this one on a hill uh but here is the grave of bull halsey uh bull halsey you wanna talk about a guy who was there at the beginning and all the way through to the end in world war ii bull halsey saw the whole thing he deployed aircraft uh on december 7th at pearl harbor and was on the deck of the uss missouri at the very end in 1945 whenever the terms of surrender were signed pretty well known for being a bit of a colorful character but uh yeah he he was he was something else and here is his [Music] grave [Music] well i visited this grave in a previous video but uh i can't hardly come to arlington and not stop and pay my respects to audie murphy uh audie murphy enlisted in the army at age 17 was in the third infantry division this guy fought through north africa italy france uh he was awarded the medal of honor for holding off an entire company of germans for an hour in the komar pocket and then let a counter attack while wounded and out of ammunition so this guy was something else also wrote a book was an actor in uh several movies including to hell and back which he where he uh where he portrayed himself and tragically died in a plane crash in 1971. [Music] here's the grave of another medal of honor recipient who is not too far from where audie murphy is buried this is captain bobby brown this guy was wounded 13 times in world war ii and received eight purple hearts two silver stars bronze star and uh was awarded the medal of honor for his actions to help secure the german city of achen but wounded 13 times that is insane looks like he died the same year as uh audie murphy as well yeah i'm gonna have to learn more about his story and again here are a few more medal of honor recipients here is a marine luther skaggs and also george krigan uh i'm not familiar with their stories but again they're very close to audi murphy here as well so i'll have to uh i'll have to look them up that's why i'm recording this so i can remember their names so while i'm traveling from one point to another i do want to address something really quick in the first arlington video that i posted i had a number of people who uh expressed some offense at the fact that i was wearing my cap here and uh i don't want to do anything that is offensive in any way so i actually reached out to arlington on three separate occasions talked to three different people just to make sure and they assured me that uh wearing a a head cover of any kind here in the cemetery is not a breach of um cemetery etiquette uh they did say however that if i were attending a a funeral um then it would it would be proper to uh remove my cover i also talked to a number of people in the military uh just to make sure and they all assured me that there's there's no breach of etiquette uh by wearing the cap so i understand where people might be coming from there but let's just be careful not to make our personal convictions a universal law but anyway whatever the case i i don't mean to to offend anybody but anyway heading on to this next grave here's another well-known figure from the tuskegee airmen here is daniel chappie james he was a decorated fighter pilot who earned his wings at the tuskegee army airfield also fought in korea flew 101 combat missions there and also 78 combat missions in vietnam so this guy was really something else now just down the line from chappie james we have the grave of alexander vandegrift vander grift was the commander of the first marine division during the battle of guadalcanal and it was for his actions there that he was awarded the medal of honor making him the first marine to be awarded both the navy cross and the medal of honor now in the first arlington video that i did i visited this grave which is the grave of the brown bomber joe lewis he served in world war ii but is most known for his career as a heavyweight boxer and after i posted that video i had several hundred people point out what a i am because right next to joe lewis i completely passed up the grave of lee marvin who is well known as an actor in the movie the dirty dozen and also the big red one he was in the marine corps and was wounded at the battle of saipan more specifically well he was shot in the butt which i mean kind of sounds funny until you know the the bigger story that it severed his sciatic nerve i believe uh so so that's not so funny but anyway here's the grave of lee marvin right next to joe lewis now the last time that i was here i was over on the other side of the cemetery and located the grave of ira hayes who was one of the flag raisers at iwo jima and since then i've discovered that there are two other flag raisers who are buried here at arlington and one of them i believe is buried right up here so here is the grave of michael strank one of the six flag raisers of iwo jima who was immortalized in joe rosenthal's famous photo of the flag raising on mount cera bocce unfortunately strength didn't survive the battle he died about a week after the photo was taken on march 1 1945 and just as a side note uh coincidence he is buried in the same section as another marine corps hero john bassillon basilone is buried oh just off in the distance over there [Music] all right so here is the grave of marine rene gagnon who again was one of the flag raisers on iwo jima and if you go to the back here this one has a little bit special marking which you don't see on the other two here you see a relief showing that famous picture says for god in his country he raised our flag in battle and showed a measure of his pride at a place called iwo jima where courage never died [Music] she [Music] [Applause] all right well unfortunately we have ran out of time i would say that the cemetery is getting ready to close but it's actually already closed on me and uh yeah i don't want to spend the night here tonight but anyway uh i by no means hit all of the graves that that you can see here uh at arlington and and can learn from uh as a matter of fact i'm definitely going to be coming back someday i found some today that i didn't know the stories on so i'm looking forward to diving in and learning a little bit more myself but anyway if you ever come to washington dc come to this place this is this is an important place in our country right here at arlington national cemetery [Music] [Music]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 169,648

Rating: 4.9307089 out of 5

Keywords: history, history travel, travel, washington dc, arlington, arlington national cemetery, cemetery tour, wwii, famous graves, grave, iwo jima, audie murphy, medal of honor

Id: C3CPpBFhmsE

Length: 18min 16sec (1096 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021