VISIT TO WAR GRAVES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 740, 13 August 1929, Page 9

VISIT TO WAR GRAVES

SIR JAMES PARR INSPECT S N.Z. MEMORIALS

BEAUTIFUL CEMETERIES Sir James Parr. High Commissioner for New Zealand in London, has recently concluded a tour of the battlefields on the western front and visited all the cemeteries and memorials in which rest. and by which are remembered. New Zealanders who fell in France.

' Sir James said that, so far as the cemeteries were concerned. he had. nothing but praise forthe work of the Imperial War Graves Commission. first, in regard to the establishment and. building of the cemeteries, and. seconq, in respect of their -present maintenance and upkeep by a. corps of some 600 British gardeners spread all over the battle qr‘ezy - .__

He was particularly impressed with the beauty of the Tyne Cot Cemetery, Passchendaele, where there are more than 12,000 graves. Sir James laid that this cemetery is beautifully maintained and is, in his opinion, a most memorable sight. Indeed, he could not imagine anything more ideal as a. military cemetery. He thought that Sir Herbert Baker's design of the Memorial to the Missing (0: which the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing is the centre feature) was really wonderful. He was also very impressed with the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, where so many New Zealanders who fell in the fighting on the Some in 1916 are buried, and with the Cite 3011 Jean Military Cemetery _ at Armentieres. where there are over 450 graves of New Zealanders who tell in the Armentieres sector: and partl. cularly with the Grevillers British Cemetery. Sir James thought that the latter was one of the most strikingly efl‘ective of the burial places. The wall of the cemetery is of red brick. artistically finished, and the name panels forming the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing. inserted in the brick, created a remarkably fine and attractive effect.

The High Commissioner was satis« fled with the general elect of the New Zealand memorials and has been able to make one or two suggestions to the commission for minor improvements. ~

During his visit. Sir James was able to see the last resting places of many New Zealand boys whom he knew and he left. with the happy knowledge that every possible care was being bestowed on the graves. cemeteries and memorials.