Burials in the 20s and 30s

[Michelle Young]

Todays burials got myself and Wayne talking about the subject as we walked into work today. Througout the 20s and 30s men were being found and reburied quite frequently I would imagine. Were the next of kin invited to attend the reburial or were they just informed by letter that the remains had been found and interred in a cemetery?

Also can anyone remember when CWGC changed the policy of using open cemeteries to using the nearest? Certainly they were still doing this in the 1980s with the mass reburial from Ovillers, and a couple of others reburied at Terlincthun.

Thanks, Michelle

[PBI]

A fair amount of correspondence between realatives of the Fallen and the then IWGC still exist,sadly many relatives of the fallen would have no doubt found it impossible to attend interments,but it seems that in the 30s many Travel Comanys enabled Veterans and relatives of the fallen to visit the final resting place/site of commemoration.The Web Site Campaigns for War Graves did contain examples of numerous Letters between the IWGC and realatives concerning discovery/Burial of remains.I believe that Campaigns for War Graves has now closed its Web Site.The IWGC/CWGC seem to have mellowed in the last 30 years regarding Open and Closed Cemeterys..nowadays casualties tend to be interred as near to where they were found as is possible..whereas Years ago a Cemetery was classed as OPEN for Burials and then later marked as CLOSED for Burials..There are numerous Burials in CWGC Cemeterys that seem to be totally out of place..i have come across many of these in my time in Belgium and France..A very good example is London Cemetery Extension at High Wood,many of the Burials behind the Cross of Sacrifice are British Burials from 1914 and British Servicemen KIA in WW2,all of these Men were KIA/DOW many many Miles form wher they originally lost their lives.

[nigelcave]

To be fair, the problem was finding the number of unrecovered bodies when they did and what to do about issues when it was impossible to get a land agreement (several cemeteries, at least one of which was in a very advanced stage of construction, had to be closed and the bodies concentrated elsewhere - Orival Wood is a good example of one where concentrations of two closed nearby cemeteries were made). There are cemeteries in the major areas where bodies seem to have been brought in from a considerable distance - London Extn is one, Cement House is another, Canadian No 2 at Vimy another and so on. So far as I know, all land agreements had to be finalised by a cut off date - maybe 1931? - though who came up with I am not sure; it might have been a matter of practicalities as far as the IWGC were concerned, who had now more or less moved to horticultural and limited (at that time) structural maintenance. In addition, it might have been found that some cemeteries could not be economically maintained for whatever reason - usually access - and there might have been pressure from some communes to move IWGC burials, again I imagine there would have been numerous reasons for such requests

The policy about burials seems to have changed in the early 90s, when it was decided to bury as appropriate in the near vicinity of where a casualty was uncovered. I imagine that this was to do with the fact that the numbers of bodies being recovered had diminished very considerably and therefore made this practicable and, of course, desirable.

[PBI]

Cabaret Rouge is another example.with Men of the Tyneside Scottish who were KIA 01.07.16 being buried there,London Cemetery High Wood contains many Men from DLI and KOYLI who were interred there in 1938 !!, and if i can remember correctly were KIA around the St Quentin and Le Transloy areas around 1917/18?

[Andrew P]

Hi Michelle, this was the correspondence received from the Imperial War Graves Commission by the Australian authorities when Thomas Self's remains were found in 1936. He had been killed on the 29th July 1916 at Pozieres. It seems more of a general information for the family rather than an invite to attend any burial.CheersAndrew

[Michelle Young]

Thanks Andrew that was the kind of thing we were discussing.

(Our recent battlefield trip was primarily to look at the October 1914 fighting around Neuve Chapelle etc. We found casualties buried in Cabaret Rouge, Canadian Cemetery no 2 and Arras Road- all a long way from where they were killed.)

Michelle

[Peter Woodger]

Hi

We must not think of the concentration and clearance exercise as always involving long distance treks. The initial work in 1919 and 1920 was carried out in very local areas. The majority of Concentrations ( here I mean the removal of bodies from a registered cemetery and their reburial in another) were carried out in this period and distances were small. After the Army went home in September 1921 the IWGC took on the responsibility of Exhumation and reburial on a reactive basis, that is they did not go looking for bodies but dealt with those that metal salvagers, farmers and builders discovered. The concentrations that occurred in the later 20s and 30s were required because of access problems or communities wanted their cemetery space back. In all cases that I have found in the Somme area the concentrated bodies were reburied within the Somme area. For clearances (which I define as individual or small groups of bodies not in registered cemeteries) the study of which cemeteries were used for later finds is very interesting. My findings show that bodies cleared from the Somme are reburied on the Somme at least until the late 1930s. Some cemeteries were only open for the burial of a few men then they were closed again. I think that the long distance moves are post WW2 but even then that was not always the case as there are at least 15 men buried in London Ext in 1955 who died on the Somme in 1916 or early 1917.

If you are going to study this be careful of the burials that are mistakes in the records not long range clearances. Take just one example of a man “buried” in Serre 2 Plot II who died in Belgium. If the burial party avoided being shot for desertion as they carried the body south then they must have been careful. They would also need to be careful making room for his burial in a trench made by V Corps in the spring of 1917 but they must have been even more careful to avoid the Germans who occupied the Ground in April 1917.

Other area of France or Belgium may be different.

In answer to Michelle’s original question there was not an invitation to NOK to attend the reburial, A body found was reburied very soon afterwards but the identity may not have been established from the effects found and original burial records for quite some time. The administrative delay, even in straightforward cases, would have been longer than anyone would want to leave a body unburied.

Peter

[nigelcave]

If you look at Canadian No 2, to take an example of one of those cemeteries where a good number of casualties have been brought in from a long distance and whose details are known, then you will find that those concentrations occurred pre World War II. I cannot lay my hands on the printed version of the register for the moment (mind you, I would have to check the figures in the register, when I can lay my hands on it, with those of today, which would show how many others have been brought in post publication of that particular edition) , but this cemetery was probably the last to have a register printed of those in France (it has the last cemetery number). The register dates from the 30s, but I cannot recall off hand when it was printed. Burials include casualties from 1st July - eg Cpl Lahee of QVR, killed at Gommecourt and from 1914 and 1915, representing units that were nowhere near Vimy or even within a reasonable distance of the Arras area.

The issue, I suspect, became one of space, casualties found after land had been 'ceded' and of IWGC administrative convenience. If i remember correctly, I think there is even an (unknown) Newfoundlander from 1 July in Cabaret Rouge, but memory can play tricks!

[PBI]

There is an Unknown Merchant Navy Casualty Buried in Suffolk Cemetery,Vierstraat,Belgium....How did He end up there ?.

[Peter Woodger]

Cabaret-Rouge is not a serious candidate for new burials after the register was first issued in 1929. A comparison between the 1929 register and the on line register shows that 3 men are no longer there but are buried elsewhere and there are 8 new names not counting the 1 man from WW2.

2 Officers of 25^th Sqdn RFC now have special memorials here.

3 Officers of 43^rd Sqdn RFC are buried here.

1 Captain of Canadian infantry and 2 Captains of British Infantry are now buried here.

It is interesting to note that all these late additions are Officers.

The concentrations into Cabaret-Rouge took place in the 1920s when 7,191 were brought in from the battlefields and 103 cemeteries (the original register only lists 92 cemeteries).

The CWGC statement “For much of the twentieth century, Cabaret Rouge served as one of a small number of ‘open cemeteries’ at which the remains of fallen servicemen newly discovered in the region were buried” is economical with the truth, the cemetery was open for 10 years from 1919 to 1929 after that only 8 men were added. I would not count that as “for much of the twentieth century”.

I cannot do the same for Canadian number 2 a I do not have an original register but the cemetery is listed in “Silent Cities” where the1929 figures say that there were 746 burials and 29 special memorials. The on line notes frustratingly say that there are nearly 3000 now so there has certainly been a large increase post 1929.