WAR GRAVES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 August 1943, Page 4

WAR GRAVES

SEARCH BV NEW ZEALAND UNIT IN EGYPT ATTEMPT TO DETERMINE FATE OF MISSING MEN. WORK IN UNCLEARED MINEFIELDS (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service). CAIRO. August 11. Among the minefields, shell holes and battered slit trenches of the El Alamein line, small groups of New Zealanders have been working for nearly a year finding and registering the graves of Allied soldiers who died in the four months’ fighting across those arid and rock-strewn slopes. The work of this unit is to search the battleground for known, but often hurriedly marked graves of soldiers killed in action and also to comb the area for the scores of men listed as missing after each major attack.

Unexploded bombs and grenades and miles of thick minefields and booby traps have added danger and difficulty to the task.

The New Zealand graves registration unit commenced work before the El Alamein battle ended. Now they have covered all the major battlefields along the line and in five months have registered some 1,700 graves. As their work now takes them into little-known areas below the line, it becomes increasingly difficult. Often with only a rough compass bearing to guide them, they search miles of windswept sand to find a single grave. They go into the midst of uncleared minefields and consider their dangerous task well worth while if they can find a few names for removal from the “missing” list. Several times recently they have had narrow escapes from mines set with tripwires. One of those which exploded near the Miterlya Ridge, while the unit was working across that area, left a crater which could have hidden a truck. Sometimes old mines explode without being touched, and it is thought the cause is the heat of the Desert summer.

This grave registration work is the first section of war graves care and will be continued by the construction of large cemeteries, where the dead from various units will be concentrated and their graves will be tended by the Imperial War Graves Commission.