The Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery is the final resting place of 7,992 soldiers and airmen. They came from 49 states, the District of Columbia, Panama, and the United Kingdom. Among the graves are 38 instances of two brothers lying side-by-side and one instance of three brothers buried side-by-side. The graves of 94 servicemen are marked with crosses that read "Here Rests in Honored Glory A Comrade in Arms Known But To God." The Colonnade through which one enters the cemetery lists the names of 450 servicemen whose bodies were never recovered.  It also displays the Seals of the States and Territories of the United States.

On 12 September 1944, the US First Infantry Division liberated the site of the cemetery, and five days later the US Graves Registration Service created a cemetery there. By the end of the war, there were 17,000 Americans and 10,600 Germans buried at the site. In 1946, the bodies of the Germans were transferred to the German cemetery at Lommel. Starting in 1947, most of the bodies of the Americans were repatriated to the United States. In 1948, the site was selected as a permanent American cemetery for those whose bodies would not be repatriated.  Construction of the permanent cemetery that we know today was completed in 1960.

Most of the soldiers buried in the cemetery died in the advance of the American Armed Forces into Germany in 1944-1945, particularly in the battles of the Hürtgen Forest, Aachen, and the drive to the Roer.  Others were killed in Belgium and the Netherlands during Operation Market Garden in September 1944, and in the Battle of the Bulge from December 1944 to January 1945.  The cemetery is also the final resting place of 420 airmen.  Seven of the Wereth 11 massacre victims are buried at the cemetery, as are several victims of the Malmedy massacre, and one member of the "Band of Brothers."

The Kingdom of Belgium provided the site of the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetry to the United States of America in perpetuity.  The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), an agency of the United States government, administers, operates and maintains this cemetery.