AFTER TEN YEARS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 105, 4 May 1926, Page 8

AFTER TEN YEARS

MISSING SOLDIERS REMAINS RECOVERED

IDENTIFIED BY RELICS FROM THE GRAVE

AN UNCERTAINTY REMOVED.

Unhappily there are many next-of-kin of New Zealand soldiers who fought in the Great War in whose minds still exists some uncertainty of the fate of their boys who were reported missing, and many live in hope that some day definite tidings will reach them of their loved ones. The remains of another New Zealand soldier, for ten years reported missing, have been recovered in France by the officers of the ever-vigilant Imperial War Graves Commission, and the relics found in the dead soldier'B unorthodox gravo (from which his identification' was established) have been received by the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. R. F. Bollard), for presentation to the next-of-kin. During the past twelve mouths the remains of some 46 New Zealand soldiers,reported missing, have been similarly discovered. On the 15th September, 1916, the soldier whose remains have now been re-

covered—a member of A Company, Ist Battalion, 3rd New Zealand (Rifle) Brigade—was killed in that memorable engagement in the neighbourhood of Flers, in which area the bodies of some 1271 New Zealanders were not recovered. The original report concerning the soldier referred to stated that burial took place in the field in Grove Alley Trench, Map Eeference 57C, N25.C.1.6. Careful search failed to locate tho grave

from that reference. Arrangements were then made to have the soldier's name placed on. the memorial to the missing to be erected in Caterpillar Valley Cemetery. DILIGENT SEARCH REWARDED. In the meantime the search was continued, and it was finally rewarded by the recovery of the body at Map Befercnce 57C, N. 25, A.7.2., some .Blight error in the original record being responsible for the mistake. In accordance with established custom, the personal effects found on the body were forwarded to New Zealand to be handed over to the iiext-of-kin. The pathetic relics in the case urder notice consisted of a silver pocket compass, an identity disc, two shiny sovereigns dated 1913, and a ten piastre piece. "Thus after ten years of uncertainty," said Mr. Bollard in referring to the matter to-day, "the next-of-kin received definite information that the remains of the missing soldier have been located and re-interred in Heath < <metery, Harbonnieres, about nine miles south-east of Corbie and two miles east of Guillancourt. The new grave has now been marked with a wooden cross, and in due course a military headstone of New Zealand design will be erected." WAR GRAVES COMMISSION EULOGISED. Mr. Bollard said that the example he hiid quoted of the good work being effectively and unostentatiously performed by the War Graves Division of the Department of Internal Affairs in conjunction with the Imperial War Graves Commission, showed that every effort possible was made to recover the remains of our missing soldiers. Although the case referred to was one

of many, it illustrated well the amount of time and patient research necessary in the work of identifying the last resting places of New Zoalanders who fell in the Great War. That the work nad not been, fruitless was shown by the fact that during the past twelve months the remains of forty-five New Zealanders had been recovered in the manner mentioned, and finally laid to rest in well-kept central cemeteries.