United States Armed Forces Military Cemetery | Manson Park

The United States Armed Forces Military Cemetery was established through a partnership of the Ipswich General Cemetery Trust and the United States of America during World War II. The cemetery, taking up a total six and a half acres, was established to provide for the Americans that were killed during their time in the Pacific theatre. The first soldier to be buried in the cemetery was Private Paul Strange, in May 1942, and over the next 3 years a total of 1512 people were buried in the grounds. This total number also included people from outside the American Military, with journalists, members of the Red Cross and soldiers from other foreign militaries included in the count.

Throughout the existence of the cemetery the graves were attended by locals throughout Ipswich, the most notable of which being Rose Manson who wrote to the families of each soldier that had been identified as being buried in the grounds, and who laid flowers at their graves which she grew in her own gardens.

After the war the cemetery was host to several commemorative services, the 1945 Memorial Day service was filmed by the ABC, and the footage sent to America to be broadcast for the families of men buried at the site. The service was attended by 3000 people, including high ranking members of the American Military, and representatives of the Australian Military.

After the end of the war plans were made to exhume the bodies of the soldiers that were buried in the cemetery and return them to their families in the United States. The Queensland Times reported on 20 December 1947 that the American War dead buried at the U.S. Cemetery were to be exhumed.

Provided the weather remains fine, the exhumation of 1397 American War dead at the U.S. Cemetery, Ipswich will be completed to-day.

 

Working at the cemetery, which is shielded from public view by sheets of canvas, 200 Australians and members of the American Graves Registration Services should have completed the work two days ago, but were hampered by the wet weather. The Australians are being paid about £2/10/ a day.

 

The disinterred bodies are being taken to Redbank, where they are embalmed and placed in steel caskets, at a cost of £200 each.

After a State funeral for one American soldier in Brisbane on Monday, the bodies will be taken, at U.S. Government expense, to America on the ship, Goucher Victory. The casket containing the body of the one soldier will be carried by a gun carriage from Redbank to King George Square. Wreaths will be laid by Federal and State Government representatives, the Brisbane City Council, and the public, in a ceremony at which the three Australian services will be represented.

 

The ceremony will take place in the square before the gun carriage. As the casket is passed to the Americans and carried aboard the Goucher Victory, an Australian guard of honour will fire a salute and sound the ‘Last Post’.

An officer at the ceremony yesterday said that the flagpole and gates at the entrance would be taken away, and all signs that the site was a cemetery would be removed.

 

The dead, with the exception of two general prisoners, will be re-buried with honours in America.

When the task of the Graves Registration Service is completed here, the unit will move to Saipan and Guam where other will be exhumed. The unit will find the extra labour it needs at these places.

 

The Ipswich Cemetery Trust is at present formulating plans to establish a memorial to the personnel buried in Ipswich.

The return itself was celebrated with a major ceremony. The bodies were placed into new, steel coffins, and travelled from Redbank to King George Square. It was here, in the centre of Brisbane where a ceremony would be held to commemorate the men, represented by the body of an unknown soldier. From here there was a procession that took them to Newstead Wharf, where the bodies were placed onto the ship that would take them home. All bar two of the American Servicemen were reburied with full military honours. Eddie Leonski, known as the Brownout Strangler, was one of these two men.

The wreaths that were placed during these ceremonies were afterward moved to the Eternal Flame, and the cemetery itself was partially repurposed as Manson Park. The park has been used for ceremonies celebrating the contribution of America in World War II in the years since.