Massachusetts National Cemetery

Massachusetts National Cemetery
File:818 massachusetts.jpg Committal Shelter in the Cemetery
Details
Established	1973
Location	Bourne, Massachusetts
Country	United States
Coordinates	41°40′23″N 70°35′00″W
Type	Public
Owned by	United States Department of Veterans Affairs
Size	749.29 acres (3 km2))
No. of graves	43,957 at 2007 Fiscal Year End
Website	VA Official Site

Massachusetts National Cemetery is a U.S. National Cemetery located in Bourne, Massachusetts, in Barnstable County on Cape Cod, approximately 65 miles (105 km) southeast of Boston, Massachusetts and adjacent to the Otis Air National Guard Base. As of fiscal year 2007, 43,957 have been interred there.

History

On June 18, 1973, Congress passed the National Cemetery Act which transferred 82 of the United States Army’s national cemeteries to the Veteran's Administration (VA). The following year, the VA’s National Cemetery System adopted the regional cemetery concept plan in which one large national cemetery would be built within each of the 10 standard federal regions, as established by the General Services Administration. A policy was established that new cemeteries would only be created on land already owned by the federal government.

No new national cemetery had been built in the New England region in nearly forty years, since 1936, when the Long Island National Cemetery opened.

During the mid-1970s, when the National Cemetery System was looking to expand, it determined that the largest veteran population in the northeast was centered in the Boston area. A search soon commenced to find a suitable site for a national cemetery, nearby. The difficult task of locating land which would be available to the government at no cost eventually led to the identification of a 749 acre (3.0 km²) tract on the 22,000 acre (89 km²) Otis Air Force Base as the most likely site. The base occupied land that was leased to the Department of Defense (DOD). A portion of this lease was terminated and the title for 749.29 acres (3.0323 km²) was transferred to the VA’s National Cemetery System in 1976. The Otis tract became the first parcel of land acquired by the National Cemetery System for the specific purpose of building a new national cemetery since 1949.

The Massachusetts National Cemetery was dedicated on October 11, 1980 and became the third new national cemetery to open in nearly 30 years. Calverton N.C. in New York, and Riverside N.C. in California, were the first and second, respectively. The site was officially named the Veterans Administration National Cemetery of Bourne, Mass., but over time the lengthy appellation changed in practice, if not in fact, to simply, Massachusetts National Cemetery.

Monuments and Memorials

Massachusetts National Cemetery has a memorial trail where, as of February 2005, 47 memorials and a carillon have been erected in memory of veterans from World War I to the modern era.

Notable Persons

Medal of Honor Recipients

Hospital Corpsman Richard David DeWert, (Korean War), U.S. Navy. In Korea April 5, 1951 (Section 5 Grave 167). Originally buried in Korea, DeWert was re-interred at the Woodlawn National Cemetery, Elmira, N.Y., on October 15, 1951. Subsequently, his family wished to have him interred in his native state. DeWert was disinterred from the Woodlawn National Cemetery on October 13, 1987, and reinterred in the Massachusetts National Cemetery on October 14, 1987.

Others

Unknown United States Soldier. Interred on August 4, 1990, in Section 5 Grave 107. The remains were unearthed during highway excavation in South Carolina in the 1980s. He was identified as a member of the "Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry" by the buttons from his uniform.

External links

• Massachusetts National Cemetery