Looking for help with info about the paperchase and physical details of dealing with casualties from death to eventual internment in a CWGC grave during the Burma Campaign. More interested in those who had battlefield burials with subsequent concentration reports. Lionboxer
Lionboxer, Did you ever solve this one? I have only just started to think about this particularly in the context of Burma. In the Battalion I study there is a wide variation of practice. Some bodies never recovered, some buried in one Cementery and later moved to another.
Suppose you do know to find the "grave concentration reports" etc. that can be found on the CWGC site?
The CWGC records were what started this chase, but you can only get so far with them. Having said that, with these records I have found the places that many of "my" men were buried originally and some that are still there in the jungle unrecovered. What I am trying to find is the other paperwork involved by the units the man belonged to giving the locations of the battlefield burial and those of the Grave Registration Units that searched and in most cases recovered them from. I have a bad feeling these were disposed of after the war. Our group will be returning soon to one particular battlefield just north of Imphal. The first exploration covered the known position of the some of the burials and subsequent retrieval of them by the GRU's. The map coordinates were given on the concentration reports. The next visit will be a needle in a haystack job as we know who is still missing but not their location other than a rough idea worked out through reading unit war diaries. These missing men would also have had their exact positions reported to the GRU's but this information is what is missing. Undoubtedly the GRU's have searched this area but given the time lapse between the deaths and searching (eight months or more) the jungle had obliterated any grave markers. Lionboxer
Yes, That is what I wonder.I know where to find the concentration reports, but lets face it, there are many soldiers whose bodies were never recovered.
I have one of these records Of my great uncle. He was in France. am I right in thinking that d/w means he died of wounds?
