WAR CEMETERIES

Southland Times, Issue 21717, 1 June 1932, Page 6

WAR CEMETERIES

CONSTRUCTIONAL WORK GRAVES WELL LOOKED AFTER MONUMENTS AT GALLIPOLI (Per United Press Association.) Wellington, May 31. Returning to New Zealand for the first time since he left with the Mai Body in 1914, Mr A. W. Mildenhall who since 1919, has been representing New Zealand on the Imperial War Graves Commission in Gallipoli, France and Belgium, arrived in Wellington to-day by the Marama from Sydney. For the past 13 years Mr Mildenhall has been superintending the constructional work of war cemeteries abroad. He said that with the exception of a few isolated cases, the graves of New Zealanders and all British soldiers in Gallipoli, France and Belgium were well looked after and in excellent condition. The few isolated cases where the graves were neglected were in French civil cemeteries. Mr Mildenhall personally superintended the erection of a memorial to New Zealanders at Chunuk Bair where he was stationed for five years. The constructional work and graves at Gallipoli were in excellent condition, although no flowers could be grown. Indigenous shrubs had been planted and these were growing very well. The monuments over the graves were constructed of stone that came from the same quarry that supplied the stone for the walls of Troy. After leaving Gallipoli, Mr Mildenhall was stationed at Albert on the Somme for 18 months. From Albert he went to Bethune, later being transferred to Alsace-Lorraine where he superintended the construction of the cemeteries of British prisoners of war. Mrs Mildenhall, who is an expert French and German linguist, has been associated with her husband in his work since 1926. During the war, from 1916 to 1918 she was a nurse and attended to many New Zealanders in hospitals on the racecourse at Rouen.