Where are the dead of Kosturino

[Sgt Stripes]

The battle of Kosturino was fought over the days of the 7th  8th and 9th December 1915 and was a major victory for the Bulgarian army forcing the British and French armies out of Macedonia into Greece. According to the official history of the war, military operations in Macedonia by Captain Cyril Falls, page 82 the British and Irish casualties  sustained in the battle was Officers killed 1 , wounded 20 ,missing 12 with other ranks put at killed 98 ,wounded 366 with 712 missing but what happened to the bodies of the men killed and where are they buried. Were they left on the battlefield, buried in a pit or trench, cremated or taken to the cemetery of the village of Kosturino. A number of years ago while having a drink in a bar in Kosturino, this question was ask and a old gentleman from the village firmly stated that British and Irish soldiers were buried in the cemetery. Are there graves of British and Irish soldiers waiting to be discovered in Macedonia.       

[Gardenerbill]

According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website the majority of the men who died at Kosturino are commemorated on the Doiran Memorial, in other words they have no known grave. There are a few in Lembet Road Cemetery but these are porbably wounded men who were evacuated but died of wounds. It is therefore quite likely that they were buried in mass graves by the Bulgarians and as you say some may be in the Kosturino village grave yard.

[MartinWills]

Locals in the area around the Kosturino ridge consider there to be an area where they believe a cemetery was created (by whom it is uncertain). It is supposedly an area indistinguishable in general from the surrounding territory and whose location tends to be something of a secret guarded by a few locals.

 

Who knows !!