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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

New Brookwood Memorial


Terry Denham

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I have just been informed that work will start on the construction of the new UNITED KINGDOM 1914-1918 MEMORIAL at Brookwood Military Cemetery, Surrey in June.

The work is expected to be finished in early September.

As a reminder from another thread.....

This memorial will record the names of the WW1 casualties who died in the UK but whose graves have never been traced or whose bodies were unrecoverable. I have a list of these names - many of them are Canadians.

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How sad that there grave whereabouts were lost in UK of all places. Terry, what explanations are there for this and why so many Canadians ?

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Burials in the UK were made by the next-of-kin in most cases rather than the military authorities. The burial location was not always communicated to the authorities and all attempts to obtain the information have failed - there being no requirement to enter place of burial on death certificates.

Attempts have continued to find these casualties and many have successfully been traced. The list is now down to 177 and it seems unlikely that these will be found now

In a few cases the body was not recoverable - washed away, up a mountain, down a hole etc - or I suppose completely destroyed in an explosion. A few could have been cremated - a few crematoria were operating in WW1 - and not recorded as a war related death. (The place of cremation counts as the 'burial' location for CWGC purposes unless the ashes are known to be buried elsewhere and crematoria have screen walls with the names of the war dead.)

The deaths occured in all years of the war but a large percentage came from 1919-1921 when, I suppose, it was easier to lose track of burials as people tried to forget the war. A very large number of the Canadians come from this period - presumably those who could not (due to wounds/illness) or did not want to go home.

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Guest Hill 60
Attempts have continued to find these casualties and many have successfully been traced. The list is now down to 177 and it seems unlikely that these will be found now

Terry - Is there a list of these 'missing' casualties available?

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Yes, I do have the list.

All the casualties appear on the current CWGC Debt of Honour on-line list but unless you know the names you are unlikely to come across them (177 out of 1.7 million names!). The new site will allow you to search by cemetery or memorial to give you a list.

If you are interested in any specific names or group email me off Forum.

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