The 80th anniversary of D-Day in June is a reminder of the significance of battlefields. Thousands of people visit sites like Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, every year for myriad reasons. Of these, some visit as part of a military staff ride, while others visit as tourists. Another reason for battlefield visits is that people identify as pilgrims on a pilgrimage.
In all three cases, the battlefield geography remains constant, but the motivations for the visit underpin why people are there, how they engage with the landscape and the meaning they make from their experiences.
Historically, pilgrimages have been religious in nature and include journeys undertaken out of obligation, devotion or to mark passages of time. Along with religious pilgrimages, battlefield pilgrimages have existed for centuries. Landscapes of war are often imbued with spiritual significance, and pilgrims visit to connect with the fallen. Postwar shrines often were established on battlefields so families could pray for the souls of the departed.
One example of this is Battle Abbey in southeast England, established by William the Conqueror after the 1066 Battle of Hastings as a shrine to all war dead. To demonstrate the intent, the high altar marks the place where William’s enemy, King Harold, fell. Pilgrimages to this site began immediately after the battle and continue to this day.
Another example of battlefields as shrines is Gettysburg National Military Park, which has been a place of pilgrimage since the end of the American Civil War. The landscape has been described as “hallowed ground.”
A similar phenomenon exists along what was the Western Front of World War I in Europe. After the war, tens of thousands of American veterans, many accompanied by their families, returned to the battlefields on pilgrimages. Such large-scale pilgrimages are not as prevalent now as during the interwar period; nonetheless, pilgrimages continue to all types of battlefields.
Moreover, the use of the words “pilgrimage” and “pilgrim” can change the conversation about how battlefields, military cemeteries and war memorials are viewed. The sacralization of these spaces provides an opportunity to think about, and experience, them in a unique way. Language such as “hallowed ground,” “sacred” and “shrine” provides a framework for war-related landscapes and monuments in a way that distinguishes them from other types of geographies and structures.
Pilgrims view these places as sacred, and their motivations for visiting the sites often include the themes of coping with grief and loss, connecting with the past or with family, or making meaning of war.
Coping With Loss
It goes without saying that battlefields are sites of great loss. Survivors are left to grieve the loss of life, mental or physical well-being and a cohesive framework for understanding the world. Battlefield pilgrimages can provide context for coping with such grief and loss.
For veterans returning to battlefields, this type of journey may occur at or near the spot where an engagement happened and possibly where comrades fell in battle. Visiting graves in military cemeteries can act as a pathway for socially accepted emotional expression and catharsis. For Gold Star families, visits to battlefields can provide comfort and connection to their loved ones who died there.
Further, these landscapes may provide a type of proxy site wherein a soldier died on one battlefield, but pilgrims experience a closeness to the soldier on another battlefield or cemetery. For example, the Gold Star mother of an Operation Enduring Freedom soldier who was killed in action may find solace and comfort by visiting the grave of a World War I soldier.
A retired lieutenant colonel told me his pilgrimage to Belleau Wood and the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, both in France, were cathartic for him. He recalled losing a friend in Afghanistan and how he struggled for years with the guilt he felt for his friend’s death.
Immediately following his friend’s death, the officer pushed the death from his thoughts so he could do his job, but the deep sense of loss was pervasive. At the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where I met him in March 2023, the retired officer visited the grave of one of his great-uncle’s friends, who died during World War I.
Being at the grave was a reminder of the loss of his own friend in Afghanistan, and the retired officer had the overwhelming sense that he and his great-uncle shared a similar experience. The retiree had never met his great-uncle, but he felt a sense of connection to him through their shared loss. The retired officer talked about a moment of weeping at the grave and a profound sense that he was able to process his grief for his friend without succumbing to it.
Connect With the Past
Pilgrimages are endeavors that connect the pilgrim to some element of the past, to others and to the self. One woman from Portland, Oregon, who I met at France’s Lorraine American Cemetery in June 2023, became interested in her family’s history during the COVID-19 pandemic. She knew her grandfather was in the U.S. Army and found his military records in the attic of her parents’ home. She researched her grandfather’s unit and where it fought in France. She started to learn French so she could make a pilgrimage after the pandemic.
It was important to her to interact with the locals near the cemetery, where she was visiting graves of soldiers who served with her grandfather. She wanted to retrace her grandfather’s steps and brought with her maps and precise GPS coordinates. The precision of the journey was part of its significance.
She said she wished she had appreciated her grandfather’s military service more and didn’t realize that a pilgrimage to the battlefields where he fought would give her a sense of closeness to him. She also experienced a sense of remembrance and gratitude for the universal sacrifices made by those who served. She was moved to tears when speaking about the French people she met, and she recalled her interactions with a French woman who was a child during World War II.
This French woman felt connected to the U.S. Army and invited the American woman into her home to share a meal. The American woman felt a close kinship with the French woman as they shared stories about the war.
Connecting with local hosts provides the opportunity for pilgrims to engage in a co-created narrative that often highlights friendship, sacrifice and the costs of war.
Making Meaning
Making meaning is the most important process pilgrims engage in during a pilgrimage. Specific to battlefield pilgrimages is a quest to make meaning of the human costs of war. Service members want to know that their sacrifice, and the losses incurred, was worth it. They often look for evidence of this during pilgrimages. Civilians also find meaning in pilgrimages to former places of war.
Anna Gdak is a Polish pilgrim who comes to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery twice a year to visit the grave of her great-uncle Frank Gdak. Frank Gdak immigrated to Pennsylvania from Poland before the start of World War I and was killed on July 24, 1918. Anna Gdak takes the train from Poland to France, then walks from Chateau-Thierry to Belleau. She brings a candle and sits at Frank Gdak’s grave for hours. She said she feels his presence there, and that he speaks to her and gives her strength for her life. Frank Gdak is a central character in her family narrative. He is viewed as a saint, and his service in the U.S. Army is a source of great pride.
The meaning-making process for pilgrims begins before the pilgrimage, continues during the journey and lasts beyond the return. People often realize a battlefield tour was a pilgrimage after the fact. Having a construct through which to ascribe meaning and connections is helpful. Once people learn about pilgrimages, their future travels typically take on a more meaningful focus.
Getting Involved
For those interested in infusing a pilgrimage overlay onto an existing visit to a battlefield, military cemetery or war memorial, here are some recommendations:
1. Connect a World War I site to a Gold Star mother who participated in U.S. government-sponsored pilgrimages in 1930–33. For example, if visiting St. Mihiel American Cemetery in France, one could incorporate research or walk in the footsteps of a Gold Star mother.
2. Follow in the footsteps of a veteran who traveled to France in 1927 for the American Legion Pilgrimage. An example of one of these veterans is Terrell Hill Sr., who participated in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives of World War I. He was wounded on Oct. 23, 1918, and received the Distinguished Service Cross. Over 20,000 veterans participated in the American Legion Pilgrimage, returning to battlefields, participating in commemoration events and reuniting with French friends and hosts.
3. Retrace the steps of a family member who served in the Army or is buried at one of the American Battle Monuments Commission cemeteries.
4. Engage local inhabitants as “sacred actors” playing a role in pilgrimages. Ask them about their experiences of interacting with visitors and pilgrims, what the war was like for their family and how their family has made meaning of past wars. This is an opportunity to practice cultural humility by hearing from locals about what war was like for their families.
5. Encourage staff ride participants to consider the landscape as sacred and as a focal point for integration of perceptions, memories and emotions. Providing the space to link the battlefield to personhood can be important. People are searching for integrative experiences, and battlefield visits can provide a setting for integration.
6. Cultivate a culture of speaking about pilgrimages or sacred experiences. It is likely that members of a group of soldiers on a staff ride or battlefield tour are experiencing profound meaning, transformation or connections. It also may be the case that group members feel emotional about the experience.
Battlefields will continue to exist regardless of whether we attribute sacred meaning to them. However, recognizing that some people view these sites as hallowed ground gives us insights into how humans cope with grief and loss, connect with history or family, and make meaning of war.
These pilgrims view battlefields as sacred places and have found ways to integrate their experiences at these sites with other fragmented parts of human existence. And, for many service members, battlefields are a type of outdoor shrine where a particular spirituality is engaged—one infused with the sacred continuity of the present self with soldiers of the past.
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Heather Warfield is a professor, researcher, author and consultant based in New Hampshire. She was a 2022–23 Fulbright France Research Scholar at the University of Lille, focusing on postwar pilgrimages to Belleau and Belleau Wood, both in France. She is co-editor of Pilgrimages to the Western Front of World War I: Historical Exemplars & Contemporary Practices, to be published in July. Her book on pilgrimages to Belleau and Belleau Wood is to be published in 2025.