Battlefield clearance

[Tom Morgan]

Like Marco, I have read something about this. I think I recall reading that the last official search of the Somme battlefield areas took place in the 1930s. (Don't ask me where I read it.)

Tom

[Guest]

I am sure that people who have lived and worked in the area all their lives have a different perspective. I can certainly see how you would not stop work for the sake of a "few old bones", which probably get chopped into smaller and smaller pieces every time the land is ploughed or harrowed.

[Terry Denham]

I am just wading through the CWGC annual reports for the 1930s but have not yet found mention of the last British search. However, they do state that official French search parties continued to find Commonwealth bodies right up to 1939 when WW2 stopped the searches.

The reports give full breakdowns of the numbers found each year and also how many found by whom - official French search parties, scrap metal searchers, farmers/others.

Here are the basic figures for Commonwealth bodies found in the financial years during the 1930s. There is a mass of other statistical info in these early reports.

1932-33 Belgium 45 France 872

1933-34 Belgium 98 France 1208

1934-35 Belgium 85 France 887

1935-36 Belgium 63 France 821

1936-37 Belgium 94 France 768

1937-38 Belgium 92 France 546

1938-39 Belgium 155 France 377

Of the 377 found in France in 1938-39, 288 were found on the Somme.

Only 16% of those found in France were found by the official French search parties.

These reports are full of interesting statistics - eg

In 1929-30, 1884 Commonwealth bodies were found on the Western Front. In 1259 instances, personal effects were found on the bodies which warranted investigation into identity. 33% of these cases ended in successful indentification.

or..

By the end of the year 1919-20, IWGC had re-buried 128,577 bodies of whom 6273 had been identified by them for the first time.

NOTE:- For the non-Brits confused by our quirky official financial year - For all governmental purposes each year runs from 6th April to 5th April the following year!

[Max]

Terry

Do you know if the same exercise was carried out post-WW2? If so have we any idea how many WW1 casualties were found?

Andy

[Terry Denham]

Searches did not take place in the same manner for WW2 as it was not a static war and there were far fewer bodies 'missing'.

By then, the army had experience of large scale warfare and attitudes to military dead had changed since 1914. Therefore, far more of the temporary cemeteries/burials were recorded.

Of course, the army had to undertake serious searches in some parts of the world for this war - Thailand, Burma, Malaya etc - where Mother Nature covered temporary graves very quickly!

The post-WW2 CWGC reports do not include the same detailed statistics for WW2. The information is much more basic - eg By the end of 1947-48, CWGC had recorded 330,057 Commonwealth war graves.

[Bert Heyvaert]

Terry, thanks the numbers and other info!

[Terry Denham]

Bert

Found it!

After trawling through all the CWGC annual reports for the 1920s, I have found the date you were searching for - and it is quite surprising.

By order of the Army Council, all British exhumation and search troops were withdrawn from France and Belgium in November 1921 - earlier than generally thought.

However, arrangements were made with the local governments that any Commonwealth bodies found subsequently by the French search teams, the general public or others would be referred to IWGC for burial along with their comrades.

Over 20,000 such bodies were found in the next five years.

So references to official searches of the battlefields post 1921 must mean the French search parties which went on until 1939.

[Bert Heyvaert]

That's just like I thought Terry, and thanks again for looking up all this info.

I am very interested in this 'dark period' between the end of the war and 1921, when a huge number of soldiers in labour companies were working on searching the battlefields, exhuming bodies and re-intering them in provisional cemeteries.

Surely these units must have had diaries, but where are they to be found? The only documents I have seen so far are lists of all the burials that were added to existing cemeteries after the armistice, with the grid reference of the place where they were dug up from an existing battlefield cemeterie that had to disappear or just from the battlefields. But the conditions these people lived and worked in... nothing found there yet...

regards,

Bert

[Aurel Sercu]

(...) The only documents I have seen so far are lists of all the burials that were added to existing cemeteries after the armistice, with the grid reference of the place where they were dug up from an existing battlefield cemeterie that had to disappear or just from the battlefields. (...)

Bert

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Bert,

Are you serious ? You have seen lists with co-ordinates of British cemeteries that had to disappear ?!

I'm sure you know that for the past months I have been focussing on disappeared British (and other) cemeteries, hoping to find exact location references ... And I'm sad to say, for the CWGC cemeteries not really successfully...

And now you are telling me you have seen "lists" ? Where did you see them ? Maidstone ?

Aurel

[roel22]

The only documents I have seen so far are lists of all the burials that were added to existing cemeteries after the armistice, with the grid reference of the place where they were dug up from an existing battlefield cemeterie that had to disappear or just from the battlefields.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is this only about British burials? Since I'm looking for info on German re-burials - which were also done under supervision of the CWGC, I believe...

regards

Roel

[egbert]

I'm sure you know that for the past months I have been focussing on disappeared British (and other) cemeteries, hoping to find exact location references ...

Aurel

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Aurel @all: do you have any references, any information as tiny as they might be of dissapeared German 1916 cemetery in Bertincourt/Somme???

[Terry Denham]

Bert

The CWGC reports also state that all records were turned over to CWGC by the army when they pulled out.

Aurel

I think you mean Maidenhead

Bert is probably referring to these records, some of which exist at CWGC HQ - burial returns etc.

[egbert]

The only documents I have seen so far are lists of all the burials that were added to existing cemeteries after the armistice, with the grid reference of the place where they were dug up from an existing battlefield cemeterie that had to disappear or just from the battlefields.

Bert

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Bert and Terry,

if such informations/ lists exist please help me: my Granddad was relocated/reburied from provisional battlefield grave in front of Bois de Nieppe to Merville CWGC under CWGC supervision either end of 1918 or 1919/1920. Is there any info obtainable on where exactly they dug him up?

[Terry Denham]

Egbert

It would have been the British army that carried out the exhumation and reburial. They would have recorded the act on a burial return.

These burial returns were turned over to IWGC when the army completed each cemetery. If these records still exist, they will be with CWGC.

If you email them, they may be able to help if there is any info available (casualty.enq@cwgc.org) and don't forget to stress that you are a relative.

These records are not generally available to the public and, at the moment, batches are taken away for filming to preserve them as they are in daily use by the staff. So it could be a while before they get back to you.

[Aurel Sercu]

Aurel @all: do you have any references, any information as tiny as they might be of dissapeared German 1916 cemetery in Bertincourt/Somme???

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Egbert,

I forgot to say : only our Province West-Vlaanderen (the large majority of course, i.e. over 95%, in the Ypres Salient.)

That is more than enough, since I have already 3 or 4 hundred disappeared German cemeteries in that area.

Aurel

[Aurel Sercu]

Is this only about British burials? Since I'm looking for info on German re-burials - which were also done under supervision of the CWGC, I believe...

regards

Roel

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Roel,

I suppose your question is for Bert ? But I think that relocations of complete German cemeteries (cemeteries ! not isolated German graves in IWGC cemeteries) in the 1920s and later were not under CWGC supervision ?

(By the way, I think you are having that recently 'discovered' (on a trench map) German cemetery near Klein Vierstraat in mind ?

Aurel

[egbert]

If you email them, they may be able to help if there is any info available (casualty.enq@cwgc.org) and don't forget to stress that you are a relative.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As usual; was a pleasure following your advice; I just sent the email to the provided address; will respond if positive answer!

[egbert]

Egbert,

I forgot to say : only our Province West-Vlaanderen (the large majority of course, i.e. over 95%, in the Ypres Salient.)

That is more than enough, since I have already 3 or 4 hundred disappeared German cemeteries in that area.

Aurel

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[Aurel Sercu]

Bert

Aurel

1. I think you mean Maidenhead 

2. Bert is probably referring to these records, some of which exist at CWGC HQ - burial returns etc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Terry,

1. Oh my God, did I write Maidstone ? Of course I meant Maidenhead. But yesterday I spent a day in Kent, and I was not that far from Maidstone, you see. So ... Anyway, there is a "Maid(en)" in it ... And at my age, maidens still confuse me.

Also : thank you, UK people for sending this lovely weather to me in Kent yesterday ! (Next time abit less hot please ...)

2. "Burial returns" ... Yes, that's what I thought. But am I right when I think that burial returns only (mostly ?) deal with remains of individual soldiers found on battlefields, or may a few of them in a "cemetery" that so far had not been known as an official cemetery ?

Do some burial returns also have, or are related to, references of known (at the time) official (small) cemeteries that were moved to larger ones in the 1920s ?

Aurel

[roel22]

By the way, I think you are having that recently 'discovered' (on a trench map) German cemetery near Klein Vierstraat in mind ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yesssss!

I'm very curious what happened to this 'friedhof'....

[Terry Denham]

Aurel

Your geographic error is forgiven.

You were in Kent yesterday and I shall be in Ypres tomorrow (Novotel).

Shall we ever meet in between!!!?

[Guest PROCONSUL]

There's also another interesting thread on the forum about an Aussie mass grave in Flanders... Eye witness accounts, archeaology and the owner of the land all agree that >100 men are buried in what were shell holes in a field but the Oz govt has ducked confirming this as it would consume all their available resources for the next X? years...

Hi, Can you refer me to the thread please? The Oz government would in no way duck this & even if they tried to, which I doubt, there are enough old diggers (from later wars) still sufficiently interested to make our government go and get them.

If true I would think the Australian War memorial would count it an honour!

Tim of the Antipodes

[Max]

Tim

There was a long thread about this subject on the digger forum some months ago (can't remember the URL though). The concensus seemed to be that the Aus gov were dragging their feet, but to me their requests for definitive information before lashing out cash seemed reasonable.

Andy

Andy

[Martin Brown]

Every year >100 are revealed by archeaologists, farmers, builders etc. The best we can do is give them a decent re-burial.

There's also another interesting thread on the forum about an Aussie mass grave in Flanders... Eye witness accounts, archeaology and the owner of the land all agree that >100 men are buried in what were shell holes in a field but the Oz govt has ducked confirming this as it would consume all their available resources for the next X? years...

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All

Actually the best we can do is more than give them a decent reburial. We can use modern archaeological and forensic techniques to identify them, say things about them and then rebury them. That way rememberance actually becomes a process of providing differing levels of identity.

On the subject of Fromelles I have seen the air photos and it's intriguing but I wouldn't go so far as to say archaeology "confirms" the existence of the site. I'd love to test the theory though.

[paul guthrie]

Why does the cemetery at Fromelles have no headstones, not even Known Only To God?