WAR CEMETERY MOVED

Hokitika Guardian, 17 May 1930, Page 7

WAR CEMETERY MOVED

Fit ENCJPI LAN DOWNER’S ATTITUDE.

LONDON, March 13.

Because of the objections of a French : owner of a liclginn chateau to the use of part of his land as a war cemetery, iiie bodies of 480 soldiers of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have recently been removed from the Rosenberg Chateau Cemetery and extension about five miles from Ar_ ' menticres to the Berks Cemetery extension close by Ploegsteert Wood. The chateau was destroyed in the War. and a plot within the grounds was used as a burial ground. ' The owner of the land decided to rebuild the residence, and asked for the removal o 1" Idle cemetery, since he considered it would-detract from the amenities of his borne. He refused to sell the land, but -'d to provide another site, wh>V could he used as a permanent resting place for the bodies. The matter has • ngaged the attention of the Imperial TT "r Graves Commission over a long period, and has been the subject of negoteiations by the Anglo-Belgian mixed committee in Belgium. The Belgium •Minister of the Interior used his influence in an endeavour toi avoid any interference with the dead, but the owned insisted on his right to the land, end finally it was decided to remove the bodies. The work of re-burial was completed last week,

'The exhumations were carried out with the greatest care. Each body, as it was reverently taken from the ,-artli ,was placed in a coffin draped with the Union Jack and removed by motor ambulance to the Berks ceim '•oiy. The dead have as their resting place from now onwards, a special section of the cemetery, which is to be known as the Rosenberg chateau, nV •V the 480 bodies, 171 are those o' United Kingdom troops, 146 are Canadians, 128 are Australians, and 35 were men of New Zealand. Many regiments are represented including the Royal •Vo rwick,shire Regiment, -in whose ranks thirty-eight of the men were serv_ ing at the time of their deaths. The greater number of the bodies were those of soldiers who fell in 1915.