Muhammed Khan - commemorated twice on CWGC?

[Neil Mackenzie]

If you search on CWGC then Muhammed Khan (Jemadar) of 57th Wildes's Rifles and kia on 29/10/14 is listed as being commemorated on Panels 1a and 2 at the Menin Gate.

A cemetery search of Bedford House shows him as being in Enclosure No4 Indian B5. The additional info is slightly different but consistent.

I realise there is a chance it is different people but it seems unlikely.

Does anyone know anything about him?

Neil

[Terry Denham]

Neil

I have found about a hundred of these potential duplications. CWGC is aware that they exist.

However, there is no means of checking whether they are the same person as no documentation pertaining to the Indian lists still exists. Also, I am told that the original Indian lists were in a poor state anyway.

Although it is very unlikely that these potential duplications are actually different people (name similar, rank, number, DoD, village etc the same), there still remains the remote possibility that they are. There are genuine examples of different men with virtually the same details.

Many of these duplications involve a name on a memorial and an actual burial. They appear to be men who were moved to distant hospitals and later died with the paperwork back at base not catching up.

In view of this lack of official evidence proving matters one way or the other, CWGC and its India office have taken the decision to leave them in place - just in case. The theory being that it is better to commemorate a man twice than to delete one man's commemoration in error.

Having said that, if you can produce official documentation proving that they are the same, they will amend the details - virtually impossible.

[Neil Mackenzie]

Terry.

Thanks for the reply - as you say better to commemorate someone twice rather than not at all.

Neil

[BeppoSapone]

It must be murder trying to keep track of the Indian Army. Look at this single name example:

http://www.cwgc.org/search/SearchResults.a...=0&send.y=0