Date of death unknown

[Ivor Lee]

Terry hope you can help with this one?

Whilst researching some men in the Indian Labour Corps I came across a number whose date of death is unknown. The CWGC shows the date as 4th August 1914 - 31st August 1921.

This set me thinking about this problem and I wondered how many casualties are shown in this way?

[Terry Denham]

Ivor

There are obviously a number of casualties from both wars where the exact date of death is unknown for various reasons.

In such cases CWGC include the smallest range of dates possible. So you could get 04.06.16 - 06.06.16 (a few days) or 01.09.17-31.09.17 (a month) or 01.01.18-31.12.18 (a year). In the most extreme cases (as in your example) you will get 04.08.14-31.08.21 or 03.09.39-31.12.47 meaning that the date of death during the war is totally unknown.

Out of the total of 1.7 million names these are a small proportion but they are not rare. In WW1 the majority are African, Asian or Indian troops where records were poorly maintained (or not at all in some cases). They also occur amongst a few PoW casualties. In WW2 they again occur mainly to this group of casualties (but not exclusively) and more frequently to PoWs in Japanese hands. European troops are also affected where they went 'missing' and were later found to be dead but on an unknown date.

If you are researching Indian members of the ILC, you may come across a few records in the database which are obviously duplicated - again caused by poor record keeping at the time and the lack of understanding then of non-European names. CWGC have recently undertaken an exercise to eliminate them but this will not yet show up on the on-line database. I have had about half a dozen of these removed in the past couple of weeks. If you find any, please let me know.

CWGC will obviously change these date entries if any firm evidence comes to light.

[Ivor Lee]

Terry

Once again thanks for your expertise.

Some time ago I did come across a CLC casualty whose date of death was before the Corps was formed. I contacted the CWGC about this error which they corrected.

I will let you know if I come across any other similar entries.