SOLDIERS' GRAVES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17943, 24 May 1920, Page 6

SOLDIERS' GRAVES

WORK OF THE COMMISSION. A HUGE TASK. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, March 30. Captain W. G. Menzies, who is in charge* of N.Z.E.F. Records in tho United Kingdom, :ind who in consequence is very much in touch with the Imperial War Graves Commission, was in France and Belgium last month, when he made a tour of the dominion soldiers' graves. Speaking unofficially to-day, he sa:d that many of the graves oould bo smartened up, but one must realise lhat what some did do, and what others thought they could do, we're ever opposing forces. The task _of keeping tho graves in order, and of identifying them -and furnishing them, was really tremendous. There were over a million , graves located in nearly SOOO cemeteries. Everything could not be done at. onoe. Some of the difficulties met with in connection with the graves were almost insuperable, not the least of them being the difficulty of identification. Sometimes there was only an old pass, or even an old envelope, sent in as ev'denoo to tho Records. The graves units in Flanders and elsewhere might sond in a statement that a soldier exhumed at such-and-such a place was numbered 26945, and there were no other marks of identification. Another oa.se might be where the name—say, Walker or Smith, alone was given—and the records had to be gone through to find if the N.Z.15.F. was in the locality at any fc : me. and might have lost a man of the name discovered. No stono was left unturned to .trace individual soldiers' craves, but it was necessarily a long and tedious business. j Steps have been taken by the Imperial War Graves Commission for-the preparation of permanent cemetery _ registers. A form his been printed on which are to be given minute particulars, and each war cemetery will keep a printed copy of all graves in that cemetery, while complete copies of nil registers of all graves will bo rendered available to relatives for purposes of reference. The forms sent to New Zealand have not u;i to the present time been returned; ne'ther has intimation been received of thf> form of memorial that New Zealand will adopt. Caotain Menzies went on to say that the dominion graves and other graves nt Abbeville and Armentieres were looking well, but of course some of those in tho Sommo ■area —by reason of their geographical location —were, subject to inundntion periwl'cnlly. and they were more or loss in a state, of'disorder. But these things could not bo • helped, and were in no way a reflection on tho commission or on the units engaged m the battls areas. To do full justice to what, was really a Dressing need. New Zealand should undertake by some specml organisation —..say the Red Cross fund —the labour, equipment, and money for the maintenanoe of the graves of hor dead. This would in no way conflict with the general'principles of the Irmwvial War Giaves Commission.

— Newport (Mon.) is very proud of its Mayor, an] lias every ieaaon to be so, for Mr Peter Wrighi is one of the most remarkable men in the country. His official salary is only £250 per annum, and yet he refused an offer of £12.000 for a two vcars' leoturinn- tour in Canada, because ho prizes so much the Honour of being. Newport's chief citizen. His career is a romance of self-help. "When I was sixteen," he tells me, "I couit'l neither read nor write. I started life as a ship's boy." Ultimately Mr Wright, after getting stranded in New York and sleeping on doorsteps, came home and attended evening classes, at which ho learned fevpn languages. —Mr A. M'Donald started Strategy an-d Princo Martian at Timaru, and both ecored well. Both youngsters have finished for the season, and with ordinary luck should finieh into a pair o' vory ueeful threo-year-olde. '