Talk:Commonwealth War Graves Commission

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[edit] War Grave

It would be useful to have a definitive definition of what is considered a war grave. I know I can never quite work out how the CWGC define them, there are many which they maintain but do not include as war graves. For example - Canadian Forestry Corps casualties are listed in the Debt of Honour Register but not Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit - why? Some civilian graves are listed but not all. They list 1914-1921 and 1939-1947 in the Register, what about other dates? Similarly some war graves in UK cemeteries have a CWGC headstone but some an ordinary one. Someone could perhaps put together a description and explanation. --jmb 21:25, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The general rule is that anyone who died while in military service during the qualifying dates for the two World Wars gets a war grave or comemoration, regardless of their actual cause of death. For certain other organisations, deaths due to specific war causes also get a war grave. A hypothetical illustration of this would be to suppose there are two Merchant Navy seamen serving on the same vessel bringing supplies to Normandy after D-Day; one is wounded in an enemy air attack, while the other develops acute appendicitis. Both are taken ashore for treatment, but still die, and are buried side-by-side in what later becomes a CWGC cemetery. The Commission will mark and care for both graves, but only the one injured in the air attack will be a war grave, while the one who died as a result of his appendicitis will not. The war grave will be marked with a standard CWGC headstone, while the other will be marked with a non-war one, such as the one on the left in this picture (which is actually a Merchant Seaman buried in Normandy - the cross on the left is a French war grave). The "notches" denote a non-war grave.
In the case of the specific examples given, the Canadian Forestry Corps was part of the Canadian Army, and so is an "automatic" qualification for war grave status. The Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit, on the other hand, appears to have been a civilian organisation, albeit engaged in war service. It would seem that all 34 NOFU deaths were from accident or illness, and so would not have qualified as war graves. In the case of the WW2 civilian register, this is again for people who died as a direct result of war causes (with a small number of exceptions). The CWGC does not hold burial details for civilians, with one or two notable exceptions (e.g. Glyndwr Michael). Instead they record the borough or district in which the death occurred, which may differ from where they were actually injured, if they died later.
Within the UK, generally you will only see a CWGC headstone if there is no private marker commemorating the individual in question. If a private marker falls into a state of disrepair or has to be removed, and there is no-one who is willing or able to pay for a replacement, the Commission may erect one of their own, if it is feasible to do so. Nick Cooper (talk) 17:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How many graves and what happens to post -45 casualties?

There are two questions I miss in the article:

1) How many graves are there alltogether? How many are known/unknown?

2) What of the casualties of wars after WWII? Are they all repatriated? HAs there been any discussion about including them?

-- Will, 00:40, 23 november 2007 (GMT+1)

The CWGC is cagey on this on their website. They say [1] 580,000 identified graves and 180,000 unidentified graves of the First War plus 530,000 names on memorials; and 370,000 graves of the Second War and 250,000 names on memorials. They also mention the 67,000 names of civilians killed in the Second War (presumably by blitz).
Such round figures are of little use to us - they're clearly just estimates - and sufficiently vague as to be hard to insert anywhere. Certainly I can't say what the overlap is between the 580k, 180k and 530k of the First War, although there clear is one.
As for post-Second War graves, the website and the official history (Summers J Remembered London:Merrell 2007 ISBN-978-1-8589-4374-9) mention them not; the official history says that the CWGC's job is to honour the dead of the two world wars. That said, churchyards near RAF bases frequently have CWGC headstones for servicepeople who have died in service, but a quick Google suggests that this is because the CWGC acts as consultant on commemorations for later wars but the graves remain the responsibility of the respective country's defence ministry.
As for repatriation, yes, where possible bodies are now always repatriated. When not possible, military graveyards are set up at or near the site of the battle in question - there's a big MoD site at Stanley in the Falklands, for instance. ➔ REDVEЯS would like to show you some puppies 20:31, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
The Commission is not "cagey" at all, because the figures you give are either roundings or estimates of the numbers that stood at the official end of each War, rather than "now." The relevant section of the most recent Annual Report (2006-2007) clearly shows for the First World War there are the following:
587,684 identified graves
187,853 unidentified graves
526,974 on memorials
Therefore:
775,537 total graves
1,114,658 total comemorations
Likewise the Second World War is:
347,629 identified graves
24,131 unidentified graves
232,724 on memorials
Therefore:
371,760 graves
580,353 comemorations
Plus 67,071 civilian comemorations
Obviously the figures are not absolute, as bodies from both World Wars are regularly uncovered from the former battlefields and properly reburied. If they are identified, memorial comemorations will become identified burials, but if not the number of unidentified graves will increase accordingly. In addition, new research may identify a deceased person who was not previously comemorated, or - in exceptional cases - it may be possible to identify exactly who is in a previously unidentified grave. Officially there is no overlap between identified graves and memorial comemorations, as each individual is only comemorated by the Commission in one place (with the exception of dual memorials in India & Pakistan; and Tanzania & Kenya). In practice, a previous memorial inscription may co-exist with a newly recovered/identified/buried body for some time until it is erased during routine work on that particular memorial. Naturally, there is an overlap between the number of unidentified graves and names on memorials.
The Commission's Royal Charter only charges it with comemorating casualties from the World Wars, but it does allow it to maintain certain non-war graves either on its sole responsibility (e.g. if they're in a CWGC cemetery), or on a "sub-contracting" basis for the Ministry of Defence. As stated above, non-war graves have slightly different headstones to those found on "official" war graves. Nick Cooper (talk) 18:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
How do the non-war grave headstones differ from the "official" war graves. They all look very similar to me. That made me think, I wonder if it is worth having a gallery of the various different types of CWGC headstone on the page? --jmb (talk) 22:39, 13 March 2008 (UTC)