SOLDIERS' GRAVES

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 15 September 1921, Page 5

SOLDIERS' GRAVES

EXHUMATION OF BODIES

BT' CABLB—PEESS ASSOCIATION—COPYBIGHT

LONDON, Sept. 13. Ihe Imperial Army proposed to dis-" continue the exhumation of soldiers' bodies last March, but;- yielding to pressure from the Dominions, agreedto continue the work till September. Each month fewer identifiable bodies have: been recovered, because the means of identification was decayed, and if they postponed discontinuance they would be in practically the same position two years hence, except that identification would he increasingly difficult. A suggestion that civilians should receive a bonus on each body recovered after the military withdrawal failed to obtam the approval of the Dominions. Tho War Office is pledged to the French Government to clear the battlefiel_s at the earliest possible date to enable civil reconstruction to proceed';' hence the desire to discontinue the work as early as possible. The Commonwealth authorities state Australian fatalities were 45,000. About 32,000 bodies have been recovered, including 26,500 .identified, fcnx .thousand were reinterred in cemeteries unidentified, leaving 12,500 still .missing.. .<_. .