VERDUN SLAUGHTER

Hokitika Guardian, 23 February 1931, Page 3

VERDUN SLAUGHTER

'U,J ri *, . ? C In>i - • ;|k IV-A grim REMINDER. ' -‘'l;',.. , -PA STILL AWAIT BURIAL. United PiAssociation. —By Electric • ; |eJegraph.—Copyright.] LONDON, February 21. - - "The Tiihes’e’U Paris correspondent, states“the terrifHc slaughter at Verdun, which was estimated at* four hundred thousand men, is recalled by tlwM'fiWilatm that... the )jodies,^oC; r ;W.elvE- thdiiMfrd dive'”hundretl lying unbtiriec!;' shed a,tr pouamont. ;T.hey packed'in’sevens in . rough wooden ■b,P? es >\ SPfb. even. nailed down, i;ajjd/ '-spiheUtnps without lids. Nine Ctlunisapd -pight hundred, bodies have ‘ lain, unburied - for nix years at Deribes. 7 - The “IVlinistc’r of Pensions, and in , charga%f ::war'graves has. investigatf ed the#matter. He explains that the is not yet ready, and that the: ■'bddties must lie “provisionally accpipinedkted.” ’ He ' deplores - that they ' haVe’/so long been unburied. He says tile" -problem is complicate# by c»n- ■' ; additions, due to the accidental cHspdv£s£Wof> more bodies at the rate (^Ufty^'Tfunclred ; a month. ; VThe ; %ihistcr adds that there is • no question of’ searching the Verdun b.nttle -al-ea- ; -for dead, as the remainder are estimated .at tons and even aundreds of thousands, and they must be gs -the digging up of ,e"ch a vast expanse would' be impossible. ,1 , .. It is recalled that the Ossuary' at Douamont, which was opened in 1927, has . been long crammed to capacity with eight thousand bodies.