Pete Kavadas

There are 203 West Virginians buried at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, among the 9,388 military members for whom it is their final resting place. Among them is Follansbee native Pete Kavadas.

Kavadas, a private first class who was just 22 when he died on July 4, 1944, was part of the Army’s 331st Infantry Regiment, 83rd Infantry Division, F Company. That company was among those that fought on D-Day. His story was memorialized in the West Virginia Veterans Memorial Archives by George Washington High School student Taylor Giles in 2015.

Kavadas’ regiment’s mission was to push enemy forces as far back as possible. On July 4, 1944, near Auvers, France, the regiment was pushing forward but fell under heavy machine gun fire from German forces. Kavadas was one of 1,300 men in the regiment killed that day, according to Giles’ research, and the regiment had advanced just 200 yards down the road. F Company suffered the most casualties of any company that day.

Kavadas died from extensive battle wounds and, according to Giles’ research, as one of the regiment’s medics was attending to Kavadas’ wounds, he called for his mother in Greek shortly before he died.

Kavadas was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his service. The Bronze Star is awarded to a soldier who has exhibited heroism and courageousness against an enemy of the United States in a war or battle. The recipient must stand out from other soldiers of the same capacity and go above and beyond the call to action. The Purple Heart is awarded to any American service member who has been wounded, died in battle, or succumbed after battle as a result of their wounds.

Kavadas, a Follansbee High School graduate and member of The Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Steubenville, worked at the Wheeling Steel coke plant before entering military service.

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial is on the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944, as the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II. The cemetery site, at the north end of its half-mile access road, covers 172.5 acres. On the Walls of the Missing, in a semicircular garden on the east side of the memorial, are inscribed 1,557 names. Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.