When my dear friend Gina Liparoto asked me to tell the story of her uncle “Bud” Richardville, a soldier who served in the Graves Registration Service in World War II, I didn’t realize the difficulties I would face in ferreting out who Bud was and what had happened to him.

The years leading up to Bud’s service in the U.S. Army, as well as his marrige to the enigmatic Lorraine, were pieced together in part thanks to the memories of surviving family members. Gina, who grew up hearing stories about her mother’s rakish older brother, contributed accounts of Bud’s poverty-stricken youth in Vincennes Indiana, where the Great Depression had yet to retract it’s spidery reach.

Gina also provided me with a packet of letters that Bud had written to relatives and which had been lovingly protected over the years, writings that helped me glimpse the man who never came home.

The big problem came when I tried to track Bud’s trail through the carnage of World War II. My first thought was to locate Bud’s military records, but I soon discovered that in 1973 a massive fire raged through the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, destroying approximately 17 million official military personnel files. The records for servicemen and women who had been discharged between 1912 and 1960 were wiped away, the flames consuming 80% of the Army’s archives.

My only option for discovering where Bud’s service took him was through the postmarks on his fragile letters, which listed the dates and locations from which the mail was sent. While the process was probably not exact, I was able to confidently follow Bud through his induction at Camp Warren in Wyoming, his posting outside of London as he and the other Allied troops waited for D-Day, and the horrors of the landing at Normandy. Though censors forbade the discussion of anything war-related in letters home, those postmarks indicated that Bud was most likely at the Battle of the Bulge, at multiple locations throughout France and Germany, and with General George Patton on his charge to liberate Czechoslovakia from the Nazis.

During my research, I could find almost nothing written about those who served alongside Bud in the GRS, where men were tasked with locating, identifying and burying the dead, their efforts—with the exception of the elegant cemeteries they left behind—seemingly ignored by history. Then, I discovered the eyewitness account of Lt. Col. Joseph James Shomon, who, as a captain, served two years in the GRS in the European Theater and wrote about his experiences in the book Crosses in the Wind. I will be forever grateful for Shomon’s memories which allowed me to see those in the GRS clearly. Ultimately, I took literary license with some of the situations in which I placed Bud and his men by utilizing the events Shomon shared.

Though Your Forgotten Sons tells the story of Bud Richardville, it is my hope that readers will remember all those who toiled in the GRS, soldiers who worked tirelessly to gave the fallen the respect and honor they deserved as they were gently laid to rest.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

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