TRACING THE MISSING.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 May 1926, Page 10

TRACING THE MISSING.

WORK ON BATTLEFIELDS. PATIENT EFFORTS REWARDED. LOST FOR TEN YEARS, The remains of another New Zealand soldier for ten years reported missing have been received in France by the officers of the Imperial War Graves Commission, and the relics found in the dead soldier's unorthodox grave, from which his identification was established, have been received by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Hon. R. F. Bollard, for presentation to the next-of-kin. During the past 12 months the remains of some 46 New Zealand soldiers reported missing have been similarly discovered. On September 15, 1916, the soldier whose remains have now been recovered, a member of A Company, Ist Battalion, Third New Zealand (Rifle) Brigade, was killed in that memorable engagement in the neighbourhood of Flers, in which area the bodies of some 1271 New Zealanders were not recovered. The original report concerning the soldier referred to stated that burial took place in the field in Grove Alley trench. A careful search failed to locate the grave from the map reference, and arrangements were then made to have the soldier’s name placed on the memorial to the missing to be erected in the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery. In the meantime the search was continued, and it was finallyrewarded by the recovery of the body.

Tn accordance with the established custom the personal effects found on the body were forwarded to New Zealand, to be handed over to the next-of-kin. The pathetic relics in the case under notice consisted of a silver pocket compass, an identity disc, two shiny sovereigns dated 1913 and a ten piastre piece. “Thus, after ten years’ uncertainty,” said Mr. Bollard, in referring to the matter to-day, “the next-of-kin have received definite information that the remains of the missing soldier have been located and reinterred in Heath Cemetery, Harbonnieres, about nine miles south-east of Corbie and two miles east of Guillancourt. The new grave has now been marked with a wooden cross and in due course a military headstone of New Zealand design will be erected.”

Mr. Bollard said that the example he had quoted of the good, work being effectively and unostentatiously performed by the war graves division of the Department of Internal Affairs, in conjunction with the Imperial War Graves Commission, showed that every effort possible was -made to recover the remains of missing soldiers. Although the case referred to was one of many, it illustrated well the amount of time and patient research necessary in the work of identifying the last resting places of New Zealanders who fell in the Great War. That the work had not been fruitless was shown by the fact that during the past 12 months the remains of 45 New Zealanders had been recovered in the manner mentioned and finally laid to rest in well-kept, central cemeteries.