Washington Irving: author, explorer, diplomat and American Legion post namesake. (Image via New York Public Library)

For Tadeusz and Jeanne and Masato

In the 105-year history of The American Legion, alongside the thousands of posts established in the early decades that are still in operation are the stories of posts no longer in existence. That same flurry of activity took place in Europe. Department of France NECman James Settle and Past National Vice Commander Doug Haggan worked with the American Legion Library at National Headquarters in Indianapolis to produce a list of canceled post charters, and some former posts took on distinctive namesakes. Among them:

Garden of Eden Post TR03, Mamuret-ul-Aziz/Harput, Turkey: presumably so named because that region is the site of Mount Ararat and was believed to have been the location of the biblical garden.

Post TR05, Constantinople, Turkey: canceled in 1925, before the new Republic of Turkey renamed it Istanbul in 1930.

Gen. Tadeusz Kosciuszko Post PL01, Warsaw: named for the military engineer who fought for revolution in both the United States and his native Poland.

Washington Irving Post SP01, Madrid: named for the author, Western explorer, and U.S. representative in Spain in the 1820s and 1840s.

League of Nations Post SD01, Geneva, Switzerland: canceled in May 1947, the year after the first session of the new United Nations, which replaced the League headquartered in Geneva.

Eternal City Post IT05, Rome: a common nickname for the 2,775-year-old Italian capital.

Jeanne D’Arc Post FR09, Orléans, France: Orléans was the site of the teenage peasant-turned-soldier-turned-saint’s first major victory against the English.

Amelia Earhart Post FR12, Dreux, France: Dreux is west of Paris, Earhart’s intended destination on her transatlantic flight in 1932 (after being blown off course, she landed in Northern Ireland). Canceled in 1957, 20 years after her disappearance. Earhart served as a Red Cross aide in Canada during World War I.

Battle of Britain Post EG40, Suffolk, England: the county’s air facilities and location on the North Sea made it both a target and a base of operations during the World War II battle.

Pvt. Masato Nakae Post IT02, Vicenza, Italy: The already established post took on Nakae as a namesake after his heroics in 1944 near Pisa, for which he received the Medal of Honor.