WAR GRAVES

Hokitika Guardian, 24 June 1933, Page 6

WAR GRAVES

GREAT WORLD-WIDE WORK REPORT TO AUSTRALIA SYDNEY, June 19. How the graves cf Empire soldiers who lost their lives in the Great War are being cared for is told in the last report of the Imperial War. Graves Commission, a copy of which lias just readied the Returned Soldiers’ League of Australia. At Gallipoli, the report states, pine trees are growing Well, and show up clearly the white memorials and the walls of the cemeteries. Wallflowers, tulips, English roses, and rosemary hedges have been planted. The caretakers and gardners, many of whom are Turks, continue to show keen interest in their work, and the relations between the commissioner’s staff and the Turkish authorities have been of a most friendly character. The regulations affecting imports into Turkey have been invariably relaxed when a request has been made by the commission to the Turkish Government.

The report shows that the work of the commission is world-wide. It ranges from the care of the vast cemoteiies in France and Belgium to a solitary mound in Bechuanaland, where, alone, lie the remains of a British warrior.

The Congo, Cuba and Leeward Islands, Armenia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Borneo, Oman, IndoCliina, and a number : off, other faraway places, cadi has a single British war grave which'is uthe care ol the commission. . .. ... FIGURES NOT FINAL The figures relating to the number of dead are not yet final. In this connection it is stated, “Perhaps they can never be final.” Bodies of British soldiers are still being found on the-Somme battlefields at the rate of about 800 a year. More than 1200 bodies were recovered during last year from the battle areas in France and Belgium, and 200 of these were not identified.

With water provided from King Fbizal’s royal estate, the whole of tlie Bagdad North Cemetery lias been irrigated, with the result that trees and shrubs now cast their friendly shade on the graves of hundreds of Britain’s war dead. To make green the desert" war graves at Basra, 200,000 cubic feet of salt earth had to be removed and replaced with sw r eet soil■ In the Jerusalem Cemetery more than 6000 chrysanthemums now bloom. The damage caused by locusts at Beersheba ha s been repaired, and the asphalting of the main road in front of the Haifa, Cemetery has checked the clouds of dust.