"Memorial at Fère-en-Tardenois Scheme
C"
By Cram and Ferguson, architects, February 17, 1927, for the American
Battle Monuments Commission
Graphite and watercolor washes on tracing paper
14 1/8 " x 23 3/4"
National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the American
Battle Monuments Commission
American Military Cemeteries Abroad:
Fère-en-Tardenois, France
In 1923 Congress created the American Battle Monuments
Commission to build and maintain memorials in the United States and foreign
countries where American Armed Forces had served since 1917. Congress
later gave the commission responsibility for maintaining burial grounds
in foreign countries and for designing and constructing memorials at these
cemeteries. The site for the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial
near the town of Fere-en-Tardenois, France, had been a temporary military
cemetery. After it became permanent, the commission chose the architectural
firm of Cram and Ferguson to design its memorial. Their design, a Romanesque
semicircular row of columns of granite and marble, encircles a stone terrace.
To each side were rooms, one serving as a chapel and the other as a small
museum. The cemetery extends out from the memorial in 4 rectangular plots
and holds the remains of 6,012 American war dead.