Work of war graves office goes on at increasing rate

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34021, 10 December 1975, Page 7

Work of war graves office goes on at increasing rate

(By

OLIVER RIDDELL.

our Wellington reporter)

To six of the busiest State servants in New Zealand the result of the General Election has made no difference at all, because the act of Parliament they administer has remained virtually unchanged since it was passed in 1921, and the work needed to administer it increases every year.

They make up the grave section of the Local Government Division of the Department of Internal Affairs. The section has three offices, in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, and the simple plaque, ‘‘War Graves,” at the front of their buildings gives no indication of the vast and minutely documented filing system they administer.

1921 Act New Zealand is a member of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which maintains several thousand cemeteries for war victims of this century, from northern Norway to New Caledonia, but New Zealand is the only member of the commission which also administers the graves of servicemen who died after the war in which they fought. These local cemeteries, about 150, are for servicemen who either served in the Home Service or overIseas.

In 1921, the Government introduced the system whereby servicemen or their next of kin could opt for them to be buried in special cemeteries where they could lie next to their comrades instead of in public cemeteries. The war graves officer of the department (Mr T. F. E. Riley) said it was not compulsory for servicemen (or servicewomen) to be so buried. Servicemen’s cemeteries are set up in liaison between the Returned Services Association, the Department of Internal Affairs, and local authorities.

When a local body acquires land for a cemetery, it is appraoched by the department and the R.S.A. to have part of it set aside for servicemen. The land is given to the department, which pays an annual maintenance grant to the local body and also pays for the grassing, reading, and fencing. The R.S.A. pays for any ornamentation such as a flagstaff or commemorative wails.

Standardised stone® ‘‘lt is a popular misconception that these are R.S.A. cemeteries,” said Mr Riley. ‘‘ln fact, they are servicemen cemeteries independent of membership of the R.S.A. or qualification for membership of the R.S.A.” There are about 100,000 former servicemen buried in these plots around New Zealand and the war graves section supplies plaques, at

concessional rates, to the next of kin. These plaques are made under contract and are sold to the next of kin for about half the normal cost.

Headstones have never included personal messages, something which is reviewed from time to time and has caused some heart-burning to relatives over the years. They are standardised to include the regimental number, rank, name (initials and surname), unit or regiment, age (optional), and date of death.

Each memorial has an emblem on it, depending on whether the servicemen was the New Zealand or Allied forces, and any member of an Allied force is eligible for burial.

Theoretically, this would include Japanese servicemen from the First World War, Russians from the First and Second World Wars, and Chinese from the Second World War, plus others, but as far as it known no-one from a country which has been both an ally and an opponent lies in any of the cemeteries. However, there are plenty of other Allied servicemen, the biggest group being the Poles.

Servicemen eligible for burial are from the Boer War (1899-1902), the First World War (1914-21, including the Occupation Forces), the Seconld World War (1939-48, including the Occupation Forces), the Korean War (1950-53), the Malayan Emergency (1949-60), and Vietnam (1964-72).

»s well as the cemeteries in New Zealand, the war graves section administers the Bourail Cemetery in New Caledonia, containing some of New Zealand’s dead from the Pacific war. Each cemetery is inspected annualy by the section’s officers. The section’s 1975-76 budget was $234,000, of which $160,000 was made a direct grant to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. This is for the upkeep of overseas,. war graves, and is assessed on a pro rata basis from the member countries of the total war dead — New Zealand’s share is 2.8 per cent.

Grave found The section has part of, and has access to the rest, a vast filing system on those who died in wars in which New Zealanders fought. It receives many inquiries about the graves of fallen or, if they were never found, the memorial on which their names appear. There were 750 inquiries in New Zealand

last year, and the number is growing each year. Considerable detective work is required to track down the last resting place of some of the fallen, particularly in the Boer War when the graves registration was not as sophisticated as it later became.

The grave of one New Zealander was finally identified as lying under a particular rock, overlooking a bend in a river, several miles from a bridge, on a farm. Markings found on the rock later confirmed the accuracy of this description. Even more astonishng was the case of a New Zealand pilot shot down over Hungary in 1944 and later reburied in the Allied war cemetery in Budapest. Many years afterwards his relatives asked for the name and village of the Hungarian family who had buried him in 1944 before his exhumation and transferral to Budapest. The inquiry was forwarded to the Commonwealth commission, and its information was so detailed that the pilot’s relatives were later able to meet the Hungarian family when visiting Europe.

The Commonwealth commission has published an encyclopaedia of all the graves under its care, giving the place and full details of everyone buried or commemorated in cemeteries or on memorials.

Mr Riley said the number of inquiries was increasing each year, possibly because more people were now in a position to afford an overseas trip and visit the graves or memorials.

He said 4600 servicemen had died in New Zealand during 1974-75, and that number was increasing each year.