Where the kNOWN Lie

Levin Daily Chronicle, 19 May 1917, Page 2

Where the kNOWN Lie

THE [REGISTRATION OF GRAVES A NATIONAL MEMORIAL. (Malcolm Ross, War Correspondent).

Northern France, March 5,

The battlefield of the Somme and the (Ancare is one great graveyard. French and British and iGernnan dead lie there. The last resting place of many a brave New Zealand soldier is in the light and troubled soil of this., part of Picardy. In the coming years pilgrims from British lands, near and. far, will come to this placet to see where their fallen lie. There is one narrow rectangle that will for ever be sacred ground to the New Zealand pilgrim. From the heights of the High Wood, or what was High Wood,, leading on to the remaining splinters of Wood he will look over a gently-sloping land ■—ternch-scarrcd and shell-torn —across which our brave battalions marched to death and wounds and glory. For us that must be ever hallojwed ground. It is perhaps somewhat sad to think that the individual restingplaces of such brave men cannot he marked. But, after all, -what abetter burying place could 1 a man wish than the vast expanse of the Somme battlefield? His sacrifice is his best m<em-

orial. Yet, whore individual memorials may be impossible, on© would lite, to see some permanent national raised. Our .Divisional General has an idea that the Somme battlefield might, after the war be turned into an International Park in which suitable monuments might be raised to the memory of the British and overseas forces who have fallen there. Possibly that might be arranged with the French Government. For years the -oil will be unfit for cultivation. It has been turned over and over that little of the good soil now remains. It wall also be dangerous to work for several years. The man who soon after the war puts a plough into -that land will earn' a Military MedaJ 1 But with live sheik and bombs lie would have little chance of wearing it. Besides, there will be the problem of the bodies of dead. In time no doubt the bones of our soldiers who- fell tliero will be gathered together •and buried in one place. It will be quite impracticable to- put headstones over the 'ri'nve/? that are known, but if a National Park could be formed the regiments that fought there might have 'heir deeds and the names of the honored dead inscribed on obelisks or other suitable monuments, and there might be one general monument of finer conception than all the rest raised in horotir and in .memory of the British armies that fought on the -fields of France and Flanders in this war. CARE OF THE GRAVES

The- registration and the care, of the •jraves of British soldiers who have fallen in the war- are problems of some difficulty, but already much has been done. The matter is in. the hands of a branch of the Adjutant-General' 's department specially created for the purpose. There is an office at Winchester House ip London, and units in "onnectiion with the work have been established in France, Belgium, Egypt, Salonika and Mesopotamia. These units register the position of the graves, wherever, possible, and mark 'them with durable wooden crosses, bearing inscriptions in metal giving the name, number, rank, regiment and date of death. While these units have done much work in registering graves, even at the front, there are many graves at and beyond the firing line that it is impossible to register. During the stress of battle many men are buried in a common grave, and often the • means of identification have been blown away. In otjrer cases bodies have been buried and graves marked witli crosses only to have all traces of the grave obliterated by enemy shelling. In other cases men killed in action have fallen in shell craters and soon after another shell has exploded near and buried .them. Again, men have been buried by their companions, and unburied and buried again by bursting shells, tiil no trace cf the original grave nor of the cross has been left. In some cases,, even within our own lines, where graves have been marked, the position is too exposed for correct plan and survey to be made. Often during heavy fighting burials have been made under circumstances that miake it impossible to transmit, and in some cases even to take, an accurate record of the position of the graves.