Cemetery Records

[andrew pugh]

Good evening.

I wonder if somebody could help me on this matter.If I were to give the Commonwealth War Graves Comission the location of a gravestone, Row/Plot ect,would they be able to tell where the body or the remains were found, or the area where found during the battlefield clearance,as someone suggested that the army kept records of where soldiers were found(Body Returns Form).These forms recorded the location and roughlythe area where found on a map.These were then sent to the C.W.G.C.recorded and kept in archive Is this true?.

Merry Christmas to you All.

Regards Andy

[jay dubaya]

Hi Andy,

Good news, the answer is a strong probability. I've recently had a response from CWGC with regards a very similar question. Two of our relatives were finaly laid to rest after the armistice. The commission was able to supply me with map references from where the bodies were exhumed. This has opened up new avenues of research as one died of wounds as a PoW. It took around six weeks to get a reply and in our case this was all the extra information that they held on these fellas.

Good luck and all the best in the coming year,

cheers, Jon

[Terry Denham]

Yes - you can ask them and, as Jon says, there is a strong possibility that the details still exist - filed under the name of the current cemetery.

You may be lucky and get a speedy reply but be prepared for a long wait. These requests have to be fitted in amongst their daily workload and a large proportion of these records are away at any one time for digitisation. CWGC is undertaking a five year programme to digitise these records for internal use to preserve the originals. These are everyday working documents for them and not historical records.

[andrew pugh]

Merry Christmas .

Thanks for that information I will look into that after the festiveties,I have a gut feeling that my

Gt Uncle is one of two unknowns in Bancourt Cemetery,If the records show that these two unknowns were brought in from the area where he went missing then Im sure Im getting close,because not many Royal Fusiliers were killed in that area on that day, according to the war diary. The Gravestones state Unknown Royal Fusilier.In the row in front there is the grave of a Sergeant from the same Btn (RENDELL)24th Bn Royal Fusiliers killed on the same day as my relative, 24th March 1918.But then I might be grasping at straws.

Regards Andy

[Guest jmkemp]

I'm interested in this. I'm trying to find out a bit more about a chap from the 2nd Scottish Rifles (aka Cameronians) who was killed on 11 Jan 1915. The Scottish National War Memorial archive shows that there were three men in 2SR killed that day, two of whom have no known grave and one who is bured in the Guards Cemetery at Windy Corner, Cuinchy. it is apparent from the plot details that the chap in the Gds Cemetery was moved in there later on (he's in plot IX and only plots I - III are the original cemetery).

What I have been wondering is whether or not I could find out where the chap with the identified grave who was moved to the Gds cemetery came from as there is a strong probability that all three men killed in the Battalion on the same day were originally buried together (assuming of course that they were all recovered and didn't die of wounds at a rear dressing station).

I suppose that the real trouble about burials from Jan 1915 in that area is that it stayed part of the combat zone for most of the rest of the war, so lots of early graves must either have been lost or disturbed by shell-fire.