Unexplained Reburials

Morning all,

I have a bit of an unexplained mystery. Here are the facts

Both Fusilier Denham and Lt. Knight are buried in GAURAIN-RAMECROIX WAR CEMETERY, near Tournai.

There are eye witness accounts of both being present at the Ypres- Comines canal and also that both are killed there.

The temporary graves map drawn by the locals at the time shows only Lt. Knight buried near Palingbeke. (along the canal where he fell)

So the question is, why move the body 40km down the road?....
especially when others that also fell nearby and are marked on the temporary burial map are buried just down the road at Bedford and Bus house?
I can understand the fog of war and the possiblity that they are reported killed but are seriously wounded, evacuated and die at a hospital, but then there wouldn't be a temporary grave.

Does anybody have any facts and figures on the reburials of British Casualties in 1942? Who it was done by and if they kept any records?

thanks all

Iain

 

I don't know the specifics of this case but having attempted to follow unit movements during May 1940 by pinpointing burials, I can confirm that it happened a lot.

The CWGC moved isolated burials to designated concentration cemeteries post war. This would not necessarily be the nearest cemetery with British burials nor even the nearest CWGC cemetery.

Most of the consolidated BEF burials from Belgium are at Leopoldsburg, which is further east than the BEF advance and many of the RAF casualties which occurred in Eastern Belgium were moved west to Heverlee which is close to the Dyle line where numbers of army casualties occurred.

Not all burials were removed from local cemeteries, only those where care and marking of a grave were seen to be a problem. The implication is that it was not done where graves had been 'adopted' and were being cared for by the local community.

 

Many of these CWG cemeteries are quite full so they may have run out of space so they would goto the nearest one with space

 

As the previous gentlemen have already stated, logic was not always at the forefront of the re-burial teams minds in either war. I have seen men who all died in Rangoon Jail or the near vicinity, remembered in Rangoon War Cemetery, Taukkyan Cemetery, on the Singapore Memorial and in various cemeteries in India.

It boils down to convenience, time, information to hand and space available I guess?

 

Yeah, I presumed the same until I visited all the cemeteries, the closest seem to have quite a bit of space, yet the one near Tournai was almost an afterthought by the side of the road.
Not a nice thought, but one wonders if they were "forgotten" in the back of a lorry, and only discovered when the vehicle was on it's way back east. Then hastily buried by the side of the road.
I guess I'll never know.
thanks for all the replies

Iain

 

Deleted

 

Thanks all,
I have some copies of the original re-burial cards and they certainly make interesting reading. (if you speak Flemish)
Describe the wounds and the contents of the pockets etc. Increadibly revealing. However..... I can't find the cards of those moved to GAURAIN-RAMECROIX WAR CEMETERY!
I'll have to contact the CWGC and see what I can uncover there.

thanks for the help.

Iain

PS. in a few weeks I will also have copies of the Will forms of those killed. They are held by the Scottish Archives.

 

Iain,

I have just returned from France attempting to find out more about a relative of mine, Trooper Joe Small of the 10th Hussars. His casualty card and CWGC gravestone list him as killed on 8th June 1940 and he is buried in the St.Pierre du Vauvray cemetery. Speaking to a local historian, I discovered that all the British dead in this action were buried 'en place' - where they lay - almost certainly by the local population and without - or before orders from the Germans to do so. The confusion or lack of detail in this case arises from the fact that the local 'chantonnier' which is literally a road mender or cleaner but has a more general meaning, had been killed in the fighting and another man was elected to rebury all the dead from the fighting. Local records suggest this was done after the 10th August when the majority of townspeople returned, that it was a priority task and that he reburied over 30 bodies, French, British and German soldiers and French civilians at a rate of 60 francs per day. I don't know what that is in today's money but he wasn't keen on paperwork as he only lsited the locations of the dead as 'dans le village'.

The British were reburied after the war by the CWGC - I haven't seen the records at the CWGC and would be interested to know of your experiences as they haven't been over helpful in my case. What the local historian was sure of was that when they were buried by the French on or about August 13th, they were positively identified, but that he couldn't be sure if the CWGC were so meticulous. I am curious as the 2/6th DOW were involved in heavy fighting in the area and yet there are no burials of any dead in the immediate vicinity. Perhaps the same thing happened?

 

Hi Brian,
it's certainly a difficult thing to get more information on. the CWGC can't release any of the temporary graves information. (i believe it is to stop people creating shrines all over the French and Belgian countryside)

However prior to 1990 (I believe) they did release this kind of information, so there are some temporary graves maps out there.
I am lucky that a local historian started his research before this change in policy and he also had access to local records (and some of the people who did the re-burials)
Each exhumation in 1941 was recorded in detail and should have a card kept at the local parish record office (many were destroyed in the subsequent 1944 actions) I have a few surviving cards. but these are like rocking horse poo!

My advice to you is to abandon hopes of the CWGC giving you any more information than they already have. (it is a wonderful service, staffed by splendid people) and try to sift through the mountains of local records and red tape!

sorry I can't be much more help!

Iain

 

Thanks Iain - and it is a help; the CWGC told me a few years back when I originally enquired that Trooper Small was not reburied and that his identity tags were sent back to his next of kin. Trouble is he was married but his widow remarried before the end of WW2 and while his mother put the inscription on the grave, no-one in his family remembers ID tags coming back. He clearly was reburied - on 13th August - but as I said in my previous post, the detail is sketchy and I doubt that the CWGC would have any more details. I would still like to actually see what's in his file and I didn't mean to cast aspersions on the staff, merely that the info was so sketchy. I understand their point about shrines and that explains why they told me he wasn't reburied, but it put me off on a false trail, following up the church to see who buried him - but they couldn't tell me anything. I am able to tell his surviving relatives that his body wasn't left lying about though, which I do know is welcome information.

cheers