3000 CEMETERIES

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14772, 11 October 1921, Page 3

3000 CEMETERIES

RESTING PLACES OF OUR DEAD. "LITTLE BITS OF ENGLAND." Fr.nm of our men who fought and ■died in Franco and Flanders says an English paper,' still lie in lonely graves where they fell: hut most of thorn have been gathered together in great war cemeteries. There are over 3000 of these "little hits of England" between 11m shores of Ihe Channel and the German frontier. Here our fallen, borne fn.-n broken trenches and torn shell craters, rest together in silent companies for ever. This great (ask—for nearly 600,000 British dead- lias been the work of Ihe Imperial War Graves Commission, set up for Ihe sole purpose of preparing tin 1 war cemeteries and transferring to them the silent sleepers from their temporary resting places on Urn field of battle.

In many places, as at Tyne Cot, on the Passchendaele Ridge, in the everfamous Yprcs salieni, the cemetery is on the actual spot where the men fell. In others, where Ihe graves were scattered over a wide area, the dead have been brought to rest m one central spot. ' This preliminary work has' now been almost completed, and the task of laying out and beautifying each silent “God's acre" has been begun. Once “Missing,” Now Found. When, at lasi, bereaved relatives were able to visil (he last restingplaces. there was some complaint that the graves were neglected, and that no enduring memorials had been raised. But rapidly all that is now being altered, and before long the grave of every known British soldier in France and Belgium will he in a carefullytended and well-kept cemetery. There must, of course, be some graves that can never be known, where men were overwhelmed in mines, buried in ruined trenches, or dissipated into dust by high-explosive shells. Some others, too, were interred by enemy hands. Here and there they arc being discovered by the peasants as they level Ihe land lo bring it back to cultivation. When such a tiling happens information is sent lo Hie nearest representative of I.l l e Imperial War Graves Commission, who at once arranges for removal of the body to a war cemetery In this way some 2a bodies arc being found every week, idcntilication being made possible, cither by idenI lily discs, or by regimental numbers stamped inside the dead soldier's bools. Many "missing" have thus been traced. Again, the War Office continues lo receive from the Germans lists of places where Britisii soldiers, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups, were buried by them. Often the lists give the names of the dead. Such burial places are carefully sought out so ns to transfer the bodies to the nearest cemetery. Whop© the Cemeteries Arc. Our headquarters for all this reverent work is in I lie grounds of a chateau aI. Longuencsso, on the outskirts of Ft. Omcr, where ihe slaff is housed in a village of Army tints. All round are wide beds (if old English garden flowers and shrubs, whore seeds and plants arc grown for planting on the graves. These are the French and Belgian areas in which our dead rest; — 1. Part of Ihe, Belgian battle area, with headquarters at Yprcs and a branch at Popcringho. 2. Remainder of the Belgian area and the Armentiercs district of France, with headquarters at Armentiercs. 3. Bcthunc and La Basse areas, with headquarters at Bcthunc. 4. Arras district and part of the Somme battlefield, with headquarters at Arras. а. Remainder of the Somme tattlefield. with headquarters at present at Achcux, but later at Albert. б. Line of communication area north of the River Somme. 7.' Line of communication area south of the Somme.

At Etaples there arc about 20,0U0 •raves: Wimereux, near Boulogne, has over i 2,000 graves. In these two spots rest nffleers and men who died in hospital, every grave being duly marked and registered. So all (hat it has been necessary (o do here has been to build enclosing walls, erect the Cross of Sacrifice, the Slone of Remembrance, and the headstones, and plant grass and flowers. 527,200 Graves. In all. the number of cemeteries is 3280. It will be several years, perhaps 10, before all the cemeteries can be completed. The actual number of graves at present is 527,200, but the total is steadily being increased. At the entrance to each completed cemetery there is an inscription cut in a stone in the enclosing wall which rends (in French and English) as follows :—- This land is the free gift of the French people for the perpetual resting-place of those of the Allied Armies who fell in the war of 191418 and are honoured here. In Belgium there is a similar record. “Belgian" being, of course, substituted for “French," the lettering being also in Flemish. On being completed, all the other cemeteries will bear Ihc inscription.