Two casualties in one grave

[David Earley]

On our way to catch the car ferry from Dieppe last week, my wife and I called in at Le Treport Military Cemetery. Although there is a lot of space between some pf the rows of graves, others were quite close together. Presumably this was how the graves were dug back in 1916 etc.

 

 

In quite a few cases, there were two names on the same headstone, such as the one in the photo, so that must mean that two casualties were buried in the same grave. I can understand why two bodies (or two sets of remains) may get confused after a battle if they were killed in action, and buried on or near the battlefield, but these two died of their wounds in one of the hospitals at Le Treport, so I don't understand why they were not buried separately.

In the cases photographed, the two men died on different days and were in different regiments, so they would have been properly identified when they died, so why would they be buried together?

 

The two men are:

Rifleman William Bertrand George Jones #3555, of the 1st Bn. Monmouthshire Regiment, died of wounds 3 July 1916, aged 16. (http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/117015/JONES, WILFRED BERTRAM GEORGE)

Private William Parker #1651, of the 1st/5th Bn. Cheshire Regiment, died of wounds 4 July 1916, aged 22. (http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/117118/PARKER, W)

 

 

From the Register of Soldiers Effects, I see that Parker died at the No. 7 Canadian General Hospital, whereas Jones is simply shown as dying at Le Treport. (According to this article No. 7 Canadian General Hospital was based at Etaples, so I'm even more confused.)

 

David

Edited 10 May , 2017 by David Earley
typo

[Moonraker]

Other examples - not necessarily relevant to easing David's understandable confusion -  discussed via

 

(some of) these links

 

Moonraker

[kenmorrison]

The Glasgow Western Necropolis has numerous "shared graves" many with up to five individual burials.

Most were from deaths in the two Military Hospitals at Stobhill and was probably a reflection of a space problem.

Examples can be seen at the Scottish War Graves site:

http://scottishwargraves.phpbbweb.com/scottishwargraves-ftopic129.html

 

Ken

[David Earley]

Although there is plenty of space around the cemetery, it may be that the two men and those either side of them were buried side by side in a "mass grave". The three headstones are tight against each other (as can be seen in the picture) but have a separate row to themselves.

I guess that when the graves were originally marked with simple wooden crosses there was enough room to have four crosses in a line, but when the crosses were replaced with CWGC headstones these were larger and there was room for only three, so the two centre casualties had to share one headstone.

David