150,000 WAR DEAD STILL MISSING

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3439, 5 March 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

150,000 WAR DEAD STILL MISSING

UNCEASING SEARCH IN THE BATTLEFIELDS. 2000 BODIES FOUND YEARLY. i During the past few years bodies of thousands of soldiers have been discovered on the battlefields of Flanders and France, said Major-General Sir Fabian Ware, vice-chairman _ of the Imperial War Graves Commission, speaking at the Working Men's Club in Crowndale Road, London. Farmers who had returned to their war-ravaged lands were the chief discoverers, and they at once informed the War Graves Commission. About 2000 bodies had been found each year, and the Commission had been able to identify about one man in five. All have been carefully removed to war cemeteries. " There are 15,745 cemeteries or churchyards in the world where there are British war graves," said Sir Fabian Ware. "Three of these in France remain open to receive the bodies and the Stones of Remembrance of those soldiers still being discovered. They are Serre Road No. 3 (Northern Somme), Sanctuary Wood, Zillebeke (south-easti of Ypres), and the Canadian Cemetery No. 2, Neuville St. Vaast (near Arras)." NEW FRENCH SEARCH.

Sir rabian said it was likely that many more British bodies would be discover 0 ' 1 hv the French War Department, which hdd lately started on a systematic search in what they called the Zone Rouge (No Man's Land). The first efforts are being made at Souchez. There are about 150,000 British soldiers whose bodies are still missing. The Empire's war dead numbered 1,100,000. Lantern slides showed Sir Fabian's audience, which was largely composed of ex-Service men, the wellkept condition of the British war cemeteries. " The graves will be honoured in perpetuity," Sir Fabian declared. "The Governments of the Empire are building up an Endowment Fund of £5,000,000 to ensure their upkeep. " The grave of a general is marked by the same simple form as the grave of a private," Sir Fabian continued. "Already 675,000 headstones have been erected. They are all of British stone and the work of British labour. In France and Belgium there are 505 gardeners, all British ex-Service men, in charge of the cemeteries." The maintenance of the memorials to the missing and the great arch at Menin Gate, Ypres, are also responsibilities of "the Imperial War Graves Commission.