I know this sounds kinda graphic but...?

Question

For example, in WW2, during any one battle, what did they do with the dead soldiers after? How did they give them a proper burial? After they won the battle obviously they could go back an get thier dead soldiers but what if they lost the battle or for some reason could not go back and retrieve the bodies? You often hear of allied soldiers marching and seeing some decomposing german corpse - werent the germans allowed to come back and retrieve thier bodies and vice versa if allied bodes were left aroud?

Answer 1

they probably put them in a pit and burned the bodies....

Answer 2

clergy or the red cross would tend to the dead. regular soldiers were apprehensive to pull guys back but would in deep engagements...on either side you never shot at a boat, tent, jeep or body that had a red cross on it. It was applicable for both the axis and the allies. Red Cross= hold your fire.  

Answer 3

Well, in my history class there were pictures of African American slaves picking up dead bodies and other belongings and putting them on these cart/table looking things and dragging them away. The bodies were burried with crosses over them, but i am not sure if germans and allies were burried seperately. Good question, though!  

Answer 4

you'd think so, i mean, its only right. but ive also heard that they just burn the bodies of the opposing side.  

Answer 5

idk but i do know that they brought the bodies back to the dead soldiers homeland and burried them there!

hope this helped

Answer 6

i know sometimes after big battles enimes would try to get the dead soldiers weapons and supplies. But mostly there were woman like in the Cival War and WW2 that gathered the dead boddies and took their supplies back to the camp. They probly had a grave yard for the bodies until they were claimed.

Answer 7

ofcoarse the germans bodys were left to rot GO AMERICA

i bet we release wild dogs to eat them or tigers or lions

Answer 8

In WWII, every US division (about 14,000 men or so total) had a Graves Registration detachment.  When action was imminent, they would quietly locate some nice level well-drained places, and place rocks about a headstone's width apart, to get an estimate of how many could be accommodated in the plot.  They carefully marked the locations on their maps.  When they had remains, they would remove the dogtags, fill out a carbon paper multiple copy form, and wrap the remains in a shelter half (half a pup tent).  They would include a bottle with one of the dog tags and a copy of the form inside, and close the shelter half with a huge safety pin.  Then you would be buried.  This was only the first time.

When fighting in the area ended, they would dig everybody up and consolidate in a divisional cemetery.  They tried to pretty these up some.  This time you got a wooden box, and the dogtag was nailed to the outside, with one nail through the hole for the chain, and one in the notch at the other end (GI lore had it that this notch was so the dogtag could be wedged between your teeth - but not everybody still had a head...  the notch was a nailguide).  Your buddies might get a chance to come say goodbye, before the division moved on.

After the war was over, all these cemeteries were emptied and all the bodies removed to one of the several dozen beautiful cemeteries maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission.  There are still caretakers employed by the US government taking care of these cemeteries today.  If you have seen "Saving Private Ryan", the beginning and end are filmed in the ABMC Normandy Cemetery.  In many places grateful local people would "adopt" graves of soldiers and communicate with the soldier's family.

In the late 1940s the next of kin of the deceased soldier would be contacted by the Army, and offered an opportunity to have their loved one returned to the states.  If a soldier was returned, he could be buried in one of the National Cemeteries, like Arlington, or somewhere in his hometown, whatever the family preferred.  This would make his fourth burial, and he could finally rest in peace.  There are still over 200,000 buried overseas, whose families decided that their lost one would be more at home among his comrades.  The highest ranking one is four star general George S. Patton, whose wife decided to leave him with his soldiers in the Ardennes Cemetery.

If no body was ever recovered, the missing man is commemorated on the Tablets of the Missing in the Cemetery nearest to where he met his end.  You can contact the ABMC and they will photograph the grave or tablet of any man and send these to the family.

Because the US in WWII mostly had the burden of trying to attack, we usually wound up holding the ground eventually, and any remains in contested areas would be attended to then.  

There was a huge warehouse in Kansas City, fourteen acres under the roof.  This was where the personal effects of the dead were sent, to be forwarded on to the next of kin.  If you were killed in Europe, this took six months, and a year if you were killed in the Pacific.  Most foot soldiers had very little, as they had to carry it with them.  Fliers though, who often lived in barracks, had a lot of stuff sometimes.  Their friends would go through it before boxing it up and sending it on, and remove anything that might upset the home folks - no porno, letters from girlfriends unknown to wives/girlfriends at home, and so on.   Despite the magnitude of their chore, the Quartermaster Corps personnel who ran the Kansas City warehouse tried to do their job with sensitivity.  

Enemy remains were generally not handled with anything like this respect, and were mostly buried in mass graves as a sanitary issue.  On the Pacific Islands, many times the action did not last too long, but generally nothing could be done about the dead in contested areas until the fighting was over.  They would bulldoze pits for the enemy troops.  Many Americans remarked on how fast the Japanese decomposed in the tropical climate, becoming truly ghastly in about one day, while Americans took several days..  They speculated that it might be a dietary factor.  Some Americans are ashamed today that they took pliers and collected the gold teeth which were very popular with the Japanese.

Another answerer mentioned the pictures of blacks gathering remains.  I have seen those pictures and those are actually freedmen, and those pictures were taken in 1866, one year after the Civil War ended.  The remains are mostly skeletal, with tatters of uniform.

Answer 9

They were often just left where they were by both sides because as you say, it couldn't be helped.

Sometimes each side were allowed to retrieve their dead and wounded by mutual agreement but often they were not. Don't forget some battles lasted months and weeks so logistically it would be impossible anyway.

Answer 10

In WW2 when the battle was over, the winner would take their own dead back home for a proper burial but in most cases the enemy would be buried in a mass grave.

Answer 11

in most cases the bodies were left there for someone else to clean up depending on who occupied the terretory at the time. my great grandfather never came home from the war his body was never found  

Answer 12

Well, typically, no.

The problem with the Second World War in this regard is that the lines for each side were dynamic, not static. One day the allied troops might be in one place, the next, 30 miles ahead. This was actually a huge logistical problem, as the dead and dying began to take up more and more time and effort to bury. (Especially during Patton's offensive in the Summer/Early Fall of 1944. He could cover as much as 50 miles a day if need be.)

What happened usually is that some men would be put on what they called "grave detail" which meant that it was their job to dig graves, and put corpses into them. Then, take half their dog tags and affix them to some sort of burial marker. Most cemeteries that you see on a large scale (for example, the absolutely beautiful, if cemeteries can be called such a thing, cemetery at Normandy was completed after the war.)

The United States also had a pattern of dis-interring the dead following the war (at the family's wishes) and bringing them back home to be buried following the war.

Answer 13

During WWII (and other wars) it depended on the countries involved and the circumstances of the battle.  Whenever possible most countries cleaned up the battlefield of dead and wounded, both for sanitation reasons (dead attract flies which spread disease) and humanitarian within the Geneva convention (as well as questioning prisoners.)  America has been extreme in its stridency to identify every body and return it home - witness the continuing work with remains from Vietnam war.  It has become hard to extend the Tomb of the Unknown because so few are unknown.

  The Red Cross functioned as a cross combatant information agency - bodies had personal effects removed and kept together and were turned over to the RC for return to families via the authorities.  This is one reason soldiers wear metal "dog tags" with embossed lettering.

  Other countries shot prisoners, buried dead in mass graves, and in some cases defiled the bodies to insult the opposition and rile up the populous. One good reason for not doing this is that it is likely to incite such behavior in the opposition.