In February of 1918, the 6000 residents of the small Scottish island of Islay were greeted by a horrible sight; hundreds of dead Americans had washed up on the shores. The boat that was carrying these men was torpedoed by German Uboats while sailing towards France.
Sergeant Malcolm MacNeill and his three fellow officers – the entirety of the town’s police force, recovered and identified all of the bodies.
Feeling that men’s burials deserved an American flag, a group of women hand stitched a US flag in less than a day so the soldiers could be buried with honor. They finished the stitching around 2am just ahead of the first US funeral held on Islay.
Roughly 700 Americans were buried on the island, all given a proper funeral.
After the war, each body was exhumed and returned to the US – apart from one soldier, Private Roy Muncaster, who remains at the request of his family.
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