Category: Postwar Myth

• Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Secret

  The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Secret theory held that the 1921 Tomb at Arlington did not actually contain the remains publicly described, and that the true unknown war dead selected in France had been diverted for medical, anatomical, or military experimentation before an empty or substitute burial was staged for public ceremony. The theory grew from the secrecy surrounding the selection and transport process, the fact that identification was intentionally impossible, and a wider postwar environment in which military medicine and body management had become more visible. Because the ceremony of national mourning was so solemn and because the remains could not be independently verified by the public, the Tomb became susceptible to theories that the symbolic burial concealed a hidden practical use for actual bodies.