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Wars and Conflicts  permalink

Why do we leave them out there?

• Message 1. 

  Posted by ColdRed (U1713841) on Tuesday, 15th November 2005

  I watched a program on UKTV history tonight about a war poet and his time spent in a german bunker for several days (sorry cant remeber name). Anyways so they went to the area he was supposed to be in and started excavating for the trench.
  
  While on the dig they discovered 1 English and 2 German bodies.
  I understand that these bodies probably wouldn be identified apart from the personal belongs they might have had on them at the time of there death.
  There are thousands of bodys left out there that might never be recovered it seems to me that a great number could be easily recovered with time and money which All governments should fund considering the circumstances. So my point for my rant is why dont they spend time recovering bodies still lying out there.
  
  Yes i appreciate that its a war grave but if they could identify even 5% of bodies that they found then it would mean 5% of relatives that could bury there missing family member.
  
  So much more i want to rant about but this will do for now.

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by expat32 (U2025313) on Wednesday, 16th November 2005

  Hi coldred,
  I'm not British so I submit the following with respect and hope it assists your inquiry.
  
  The Protection of Military Remains Act does not provide for relatives’ wishes. It cites historical precedence, saying that the ‘battlefield grave’ is an honourable British tradition.
  
  
  After the Great War (1914-18), despite families’ entreaties, the Empire’s dead were left where they were, for reasons of cost and equality. Repatriating only identified remains, it was argued, would discriminate against the families of the hundreds of thousands in graves marked only ‘Known unto God’ or listed as missing. During WWII this policy continued, except for service personnel killed within the UK, whose relatives could have their loved ones returned. Flag-draped coffins awaiting collection at provincial railway stations became all too common.
  
  In 1920 the French government caved in to pressure and allowed relatives to reclaim their war dead, at state expense. Within two years, in a remarkable exercise in logistics, some 300,000 fallen had been exhumed and returned to their home towns.
  
  
  The British Government’s attitude contrasts even more sharply with that of the United States, which from World War I has been committed to repatriating its war dead. The RAF’s Missing Research and Enquiry Unit ceased work in the 1950s. The US Army’s Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii is searching now.

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by DL (U1683040) on Friday, 18th November 2005

  Another reason regarding this issue is that at the start of WW1, the ruling was made that all KIA servicemen would be buried in local cemeteries. This was due to the fact that only the wealthy would be able to afford repatriation of their loved ones, and this was considered to be "unfair", particularly when relating to the vast citizen armies of the great war.
  
  The same decision was taken regarding gravestones also, as they would have ended up with a huge variance in headstones, and indeed some wealthy families had actually installed gravestones even before the war's end. These were removed, returned and replaced with the standard ones you see today in their thousand, in the vast "cities of the dwad" in France and Belgium. IMO a very fair, democratic and quite "un-British" (for the time) ruling. The world of 1914-18 was a class-riddled unequal one, and it seems to me to be exceptionally far-sighted and an altogether good thing, to bury the Colonel and the Corporal side by side, with the same gravestone, and grant them all equality in their remembrance.
  
  Cheers
  DL

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by storyteller1958 (U2559040) on Monday, 21st November 2005

  Hi,
  I visit the areas that everyone sees on the history channels. And with the greatest respect I answer you like this. There are now only eight survivers in this country of the great war and many of them either dont talk about it or they talk very little. most wish that it had been them instead of their pals, I think that if the dead could talk they would say leave me with my fallen comrades, and remember us together for we gave our today so you could have your tomorrow. I travel every year and teach the youth of today not to forget most dont. I never will. So if you have your health take that trip and you might come back feeling the way most visitors do.

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