Van Velzen Missing in Action

[Perth Digger]

Attached is a review of Marianne Van Velzen, Missing in Action: Australia's World War i Graves Services, an astonishing story of misconduct, fraud and hoaxing (2018).

 

Mike

Van Velzen AGS.pdf

Edited 26 June , 2018 by Perth Digger

[torokina]

Who is the author of the review and its source?

[Perth Digger]

I wrote it. A slightly revised version can be found on my website at:

http://www.greatwarbritishofficers.com/index_htm_files/Van Velzen AGS.pdf

 

[themonsstar]

Cheers for posting Mike I've just put my order in. 

 

The Australian GRT's were not the only ones in a mess, I suspect there were plenty of other teams what were traumatised from the First World War trying to cope doing an horrendous job.

 

 

Roy Ex Grave Registration Team

[Perth Digger]

That's possible, Roy, but I wouldn't know where to look for such evidence. It's not occurred to me before, but I wonder if the Labour Companies kept war diaries?

If the Australian example tells us anything, it is that discipline was the key. If the officers weren't up to it, nor would the Labour workers be either. It's not a job easily forgotten, I'd imagine.

 

Mike

[torokina]

The problem is 'Missing in Action' is written by a journalist who has little grasp of the military.

 

It is also a tough assignment to pass judgement of the officers in their 'graves' roles.

 

There are no war diaries for the AGS cause they came under administration of Australia House. There is always going to be the difficulty of authority when the military comes under civil admin - especially when Australia House did nothing to quash it. There is little war diary documentation for the Graves Detachment.

 

You have to look at the evolution of formal burial practices throughout the war. A subject that is barely examined. Why, cause people nowadays think it was a given. Which is a completely wrong assumption. To make statements officers weren't up to it, is to fail to recognise that there was little established protocol to follow.... The authorities did too little too late, and yet the ones criticised are the PBI picking up the pieces.

[jay dubaya]

Have just finished reading this, it was almost shelved after the first few pages...

’the corpses were occasionally set alight with whatever fuel was at hand’

‘just one day of fighting at Mons had resulted in 35000 deaths’

’Fromelles, a town close to France’s northern border with Germany’

One has to question why the AGS/IWGC ignored the mass graves at Fromelles and why it took independent researches to finally locate the graves nearly one hundred years later.

[AOK4]

1 hour ago, jay dubaya said:

Have just finished reading this, it was almost shelved after the first few pages...

’the corpses were occasionally set alight with whatever fuel was at hand’

‘just one day of fighting at Mons had resulted in 35000 deaths’

’Fromelles, a town close to France’s northern border with Germany’

One has to question why the AGS/IWGC ignored the mass graves at Fromelles and why it took independent researches to finally locate the graves nearly one hundred years later.

My goodness...