Although actually located just over the border in Normandy, the Brittany American Cemetery is the resting place of US soldiers who fell in battle during the liberation of both regions at sites from Brest in Brittany to as far east as the River Seine in Normandy.
Established on August 5, 1944 – just three days after the liberation of the town of Saint-James – it was initially a temporary cemetery for US personnel.
Following the war’s end, it became permanent, with some of those initially interred being repatriated to the US and those in smaller field grave sites being moved to this new site for proper burials.
Today there are 4,404 burials in its 28 acre grounds, with another 498 names listed on the wall of the missing.
Many of those at rest here died during the ‘battle of the hedgerows’, the countryside around the towns of Saint-Lo and Avranches where US forces took on both the Germans and the heavily defended bocage landscape.
There are 95 headstones mark graves of soldiers who could not be identified. Tragically, there are 20 brothers who are buried side by side, and two graves which each mark two unidentified individuals who could not be separated in death.
The cemetery is laid out in 16 plots, curving from a central point, and also features a large memorial chapel which towers over the site and several memorial sculptures, one which reads “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith”.
Two of those buried at Saint-James were recipients of the US’ Medal of Honor - Staff Sergeant Sherwood Hallman and Private Ernest Prussman.
Hallman – of the 29th Infantry Division – single handedly captured a German machine gun position during the battle for the fortified port town of Brest, in Brittany, and captured 12 enemy soldiers. Seeing the surrender of this position, a further 75 German soldiers surrendered, allowing an entire battalion of US forces to advance nearly 2km. Aged just 30, he was killed the following day – September 14, 1944.
Private First Class Ernest Prussman was part of the US 8th Infantry Division and was also killed near Brest, just a week before his 23rd birthday.
Under heavy fire from mortars, machine guns, and snipers, Prussman moved in front of his unit and was responsible for taking out an MG nest and moved on to attack a second position where he was successful but mortally wounded in the process.
His actions saw the collapse of the resistance point and allowed two US battalions to advance.
Both soldiers were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on April 17, 1945.
Notable burials also include the actor Thomas Potts - who appeared in over 80 movies during the late 1930s and early 1940s and went by the stage name of Richard Fiske. He was an infantry lieutenant who was killed on August 10 in one of the small villages near to Saint-James.
Potts lies in Plot J, Row 1, Grave 9. Hallman rests in Plot M, Row 5, Grave 11. Prussman lies in Plot A, Row 12, Grave 14.