WAR DEAD

Taranaki Daily News, 14 April 1932, Page 16

WAR DEAD

STILL BEING FOUND.

BRITAIN’S MISSING.

During the past few years bodies of thousands of soldiers have been discovered on the battlefields of France and Flanders, said Major-General Sir Fabian Ware, vice-chairman of the Imperial War Graves Commission, speaking at the Working Men’s College in London, says the Daily Express. Farmers who had returned to their war-ravaged lands were the chief discoverers, and they at once informed the - War Graves Commission. About 2900 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. “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. 2 (Northern Somme), Sanctuary Wood, Zillebeke (S.E. of Y’pres), and the Canadian Cemetery No. 2, Neuville St. Vaast (near Arras).” Sir Fabian said that it was likely that many more British bodies would be discovered by the French War Department, which had 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-serviee men, the well-kept 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 the general is marked by the same simple form as the grave of the 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 550 gardeners, all British ex-service men, in charge of the cemeteries.” The maintenance of the memorials to the missing and the great arch at Alenin Gate, Ypres, are also responsibilities of the Imperial War Graves Commission.