SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Veterans are honoring a Medal of Honor recipient whose resting place was long a mystery.
The Portland Press Herald reported veterans from an American Legion post in South Portland planned to gather Sunday afternoon to lay a wreath at Navy Seaman Emile Lejeune’s once-unmarked grave in Forest City Cemetery.
Lejeune received a peacetime Medal of Honor for rescuing a civilian who fell off the wharf in 1876.
Lejeune had served aboard the USS Plymouth. He was born in Paris and lived in New York, and his exact place of death was unknown.
Researchers from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society found that Lejeune had been buried under the wrong name in a pauper’s grave. It’s still unknown how Lejeune came to be buried in his doctor’s South Portland cemetery plot.
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Information from: Portland Press Herald, https://www.pressherald.com
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