MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.

New Zealand Police Gazette, Volume LXVI, Issue 20, 21 May 1941, Page 391

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.

Memorandum.] Emergency Precautions Service : identification of Deceased Persons. In case of emergency, for which preparation must be made, it will be necessary for dead human bodies to be taken care of pending identification. This is essentially the work of the police, and it is to be undertaken by members of the Force with assistance of selected members of the Special Police if occasion arises.

To facilitate the work, forms have been prepared which will be printed and supplied as soon as possible to Officers in Charge of Districts for distribution to the police stations in each district.

In order to be prepared for an emergency, Officers in Charge of Districts will arrange to organize an Identification Branch in conjunction with each local Emergency Precautions Service, so that specially trained squads may take charge of the dead, attend to the identification and removal of same, and keep all belongings in safe custody. The greatest precautions must be taken to see that accurate records are made as to the exact location of every body buried, and where a number are buried in a common grave it may be the caskets are placed three deep; if so, there must be no doubt as to where any particular body is placed so that if the relatives desire to exhume the body for reinterment elsewhere there will be no difficulty in locating it. D. J. Cummings, Commissioner of Police. Wellington, 19th May, 1941, (C. R. 41/88.)