WAR GRAVES

Hokitika Guardian, 28 May 1931, Page 7

WAR GRAVES

SIR FABIAN WARE’S TOUR. MESOPOTAMIA AND PALESTINE. LONDON, April 17. Sir Fabian Ware-, vice-chairman of the Imperial War Graves Commission, has returned from a visit to India and Iraq. He went to India at the invitation of the Indian Government to represent tlie War Graves Commission, at the unveiling of the new Delhi War Memorial Arch. Returning, he felt called upon to inspect the war cemeteries in Iraq and bring home to the. relatives of those who fell there some message. “At the cemetery at Rut,” said Sir Fabian, “there was one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. As 'in France and Flanders, there were the Cross of Sacrifice, the Stone of Remembrance, and the headstones. The latter were beneath the palms. I have never been ,at many stately ceremonies when homage was paid to our dead, but I have never been more moved than by the tribute paid by the Arabs of the town. They gathered in rows, and remained in an attitude of respect all the time we were among the graves, “I do not think I was ever quit© so proud of the work we have clone. I felt that in the care of our dead we were representing permanently to these people something of what 'is best in British ideals.” 1 BAGDAD CEMETERY. The Bagdad Cemetery, Sir Fabian War© stated, is the only place where there is any departure from that plan of equal treatment which consists in marking o a ch grave by the same kind of headstone. This is clue to the fact that 'it is the only cemetery of the kind in which a General is buried. General Maude lies there in a grave in the centre of the ground, and over it has been erected a special monument which has something of the appearance of a shrine. After General Maude’s death the question arose whether his remains should be- brought homo for burial in St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was, however, decided that they should be left to rest in tin East, and to meet the particular case the ■Commission made an exception to the rule of uniform treatment. The [British and Indian prisoners who were taken at the surrender of Kut afterwards went through great sufferings. After the war the remains of about 500 of those who died and bad been traced were quietly brought to Bagdad and buried with their comrades, This story, Sir Fabian Ware .said, had never yet been told. Mr Kipling was considering a special inscription to he placed over the plot where the men were buried.

In Iraq a problem of material has arisen which is engaging the attention of the Commission. There have been some 1 signs of corrosion of headstones, and experiments are being made to find the most suitable '.material t.o withstand the stress of desert- conditions,

NEW ZEALAND GRAVES AT Damascus.

Sir Fabian Ware went on to Beirut, stopping at Damascus. Very few people, he said, knew that there was n British War cemetery at. Damascus. There was, however, a very beautiful one, in which there were 597 graves, a large proportion of which were those of Australian and New Zealand soldiers. It was similar to the cemetery at Kut in being well planted with trees. At Beirut also w«s the Same kind of cpmetery, with trees and flowers and 359 graves. Sir Fabian Ware went through Palestine, where, he said, he was much' struck by the great improvement in the horticultural work and the growth of trees and shrubs. At Haifa there were 308 graves, Ramlem 3686, Jerusalem 2534, Beersheba 1239. Gaza 3177, and Deir-cl-Belah 669. That on the Mount, of Olives was a cemetery where the flowers and shrubs were not .satisfactory. There had been difficulties from drought and locusts. PERMANENT MAINTENANCE. Tile Commission, Sir F a hian W a re said, received a number of enquiries about these distant graves, and a surprising number of visits had been made to them, though, of course, not comparable to those made to graves in France and Belgium. As regards the permanent maintenance of the graves, Sir Fabian Ware pointed out that an endowment fund is being built up, so that there need hv no anxiety. The Dominions, he said, had paid up the. whole of their contributions to the Fund.

The number of graves which are being dealt with throughout the world is over 700,000- Colonel Hughes m Cairo has charge of the work in the Near East, with another representative, Captain Peek, acting in Iraq. Every single headstone that has been put no, Sir Fa,ban Ware sa'.d. has meant- comm imitation with a man’s next of kin. There is, therefore. a direct pcrsonel touch in the relations between the Department and tho s e concerned.