Memorial

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Pvt Raymond J. Dionne was employed at the Portsmouth Navy Yard before he volunteered for the Army of the United States in Manchester, New Hampshire on 30 September 1942. He was sent overseas on 23 April 1943.

He saw battle in Sicily, Italy and in Normandy.

In August 1951 an investigation was conducted in an effort to locate and recover the remains of Pvt Dionne. According to a comrade, Gerald Cosgrove, Pvt Dionne was killed by schrapnel through his neck from a mortar barrage while covering the advance of a patrol. His remains were placed at the side of a dirt road not far from the foxhole in which he was killed. The location of the foxhole was a small patch of ground bordered by roads on the north east and southside, with a steep hill in the west. The area had a surface of about 50 square yards and was covered with stones and small bushes. From the same location several remains were previously disinterred.

According to Sgt Visser, chief of the local branch of the federal Dutch police, many American dead had been evacuated from this site but the "Notes of Disinterment" in the Town Hall Files failed to show the exact location of disinterment. He also stated that after the war, the dirt road on the east of the burial site was moved several yards and it was therefore possible that the remains of Pvt Dionne were covered by the new road surface.

He also stated that in 1948 some unknown remains were recovered in the middle of this road but the disposition and circumstances were only known by the "Dienst Identificatie en Berging", a section of the Dutch Ministery of the Interior.

Considered digging was done at the site by the local police. Several foxholes were also excavated but no trace of human remains was found.