MISSING SOLDIERS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 217, 9 June 1943, Page 8

MISSING SOLDIERS

Efforts Made To Trace Them Steps taken by the casualty section of the Overseas Base to trace New Zealand soldiers posted missing in the Middle East have been outlined by the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser. He said that no source of information that might even remotely be of use was overlooked. Mr. Fraser said that when a soldier was posted missing by his unit the following routine steps were taken: (a) All medical unit returns showing admissions and discharges of patients are checked to ensure that personnel posted, missing by units still in action are not, in fact, in hospital; (b) returns from graves registration units in the field are checked to ensure that personnel whose graves have been located have been classified as deceased and not as missing; (c) units are required to hold a court of inquiry to decide whether the soldier is to lie presumed dead or reclassified as missing believed prisoner of war, believed killed, etc.; (d) a further court of inquiry is held for the same purpose after a lapse of from three to six months, but meantime units are instructed and encouraged to send on to the base casualty section any information that may have come to hand regarding missing personnel; (e) the casualty section keeps available complete particulars concerning every man on the missing list and every soldier calling at the office for information about friends is personally asked for information about missing men of his own and other units; (f) all escapees are personally interviewed to obtain information about men then on the missing list; (g) weekly additions to the missing list are sent to the N.Z.E.F. representative at British Red Cross, Cairo, who has access to the International Rod Cross list ot unidentified prisoners of war, and all cables received by this ■ representative from Geneva are sent ,to the base' casualty section for checking; (h) International Red Cross, Geneva, have been requested to instruct camp leaders of the various prisoner of war camps in Italy to prepare rolls of N.Z.E.F. personnel. By this means it is hoped that information will be obtained concerning any soldiers posted missing who. are actually prisoners of war in Italy: fi) periodically a notice appears in the “N.Z.E.F. Times requesting members of the Force to supply any information they may have about men on the missing list. Compilation of Rolls. “Apart from the routine procedure outlined, further steps have recently been taken in an endeavour to obtain additional information about missing men, said Mr. Fraser. “Rolls of missing, personnel of whom nothing .has been heard since they were posted missing after the Greece and Crete campaigns , have been prepared for each unit, and units to which they have been issued have been asked to make detailed inquiries among their personnel to glean information not yet made available to the casualty section. In addition to supply units with rolls of their own personnel posted missing they will also receive rolls of inissiifg personnel of other units with which they were closely associated during the Greece and Crete campaigns. All these rolls, have, since been amalgamated and published in the ‘N.Z.E.F. Times,’ with a request that any member of the force who has any information concerning a missing soldier communicate immediately -with the casualty section.

“All information obtained by any of the means described is immediately forwarded to Base Record's. Wellington, who in turn connminicate it to the'next-of-kin.

“The Government and the Army authorities fully realize the strain of anxiety placed on the relatives of soldiers who are posted missing and about whom no information is quickly forthcoming, but this ' explanation will, I trust, make it clear that everything is being done to ensure that the anxiety of those concerned does not continue a moment longer than necessary.”