HALF A MILLION WAR GRAVES

Evening Star, Issue 17581, 9 February 1921, Page 3

HALF A MILLION WAR GRAVES

COMMISSION’S REPORT OF PROGRESS, The annual report of the Imperial War Graves Commission for 1919-20, published recently as a Ahito Paper, states that the total number of graves registered up to September 30, 1920, was 582,426, and the number of burials registered was 187,705. The latter include cases in which death is established but no grave Has been identified. The figures for France ami Belgium were 472,797 graves, and 137,450 burials. For the period April 1, 1919, to March 31, 1920, the cash expenditure the Commission amounted to £243,677, and each of the Dominion Governments has been requested to pay to the Commission its proportion of that sum. The extent of the work.of exhumation and concentration of scattered graves in France and Belgium up to March 22. 1920, is indicated hy the following figures;--Reinterments, 128,577; already known, 55,508; identical for first time, 6,273; unknown, 66,796. The total number of graves in France and Belgium when the work had been completed would probably be over 500,000, and the number of cemeteries requiring architectural treatment in addition to the erection of headstones (which is practically ail that will he required for graves in French Communal cemeteries) will exceed 1,200.