GRAVES ON GALLIPOLI.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 18217, 3 October 1919, Page 8

GRAVES ON GALLIPOLI.

INFORMATION WANTED FROM SOLDIERS. [From Ou* CoßnfcsroKniwr.] WELLINGTON, October 2. Since the conclusion of the Gallipoli campaign, the military authorities have been collecting all available information concerning the burial of New Zealanders on the Peninsula. After the ainiistice, a special party from the Canterbury Mounted Rifle*, visited Gallipoli for the purpose of locating graves, and ensuring the permanence of identification marks. Care was taken to locate the burial spots by exact markings, and the taking of bearings. The lesult of this visit was communicated to the Imperial Graves Commission, and to the New Zealand authorities. Now that all the official data has been got together, it is evident that so far as the identification of individual graves is concerned, here is unfortunately a hig void to fill in the records. A cable message was recently received from tho Now Zealand Records Office in Egypt, stating that many graves which have been located on Gallipoli are known to contain tho bodies of New Zealanders, but their names cannot be ascertained. It is behoved that some of these graves could be identified from information in the possession of soldiers and next ot km in New Zealand.. Consequently, the Officer in Charge of Records, Wellington, is endeavouring to collect any facts or photographs which can be given to him in New Zealand regarding the burying places of individuals, as this will in many cases enable the grave to be definitely marked. Nomavter how meagre, information of this kind will be welcomed, and will be forwarded to the Graves Registration Unit in Egypt for action to be taken. Next of kin who know where a soldier relative has been buriod should send this information to Base Records, and soldiers who remember where friends were buried should follow the same course, as they will thus be able to affoid to many people in New Zealand the consolation of knowing that the grave of one who fell in that campaign will be appropriately marked, and preserved for all time as a memorial of the sacrifice made.