In an article (“Duke opens Field of Remembrance”) related to Remembrance Day activities in Britain the BBC quotes a veteran who makes the point of British war dead buried overseas in a very personal way. What also strikes me is that the burial of war dead overseas has clearly influenced the way that the British honor their war dead at home.

Mr Bowen, who joined the Army when he was just 15 and took part in D-Day with the 5th Battalion East Yorkshire, spoke of the importance of honouring his fallen comrades at the Abbey each year.

“I served for 25 years. My friends… some are buried in France, Belgium, Holland. I have friends buried in Egypt and friends buried in Palestine.

“How can I go and visit all their graves? It’s impossible. So what I do is come here and this is my way of paying my respect to my fallen comrades.”

The London Times reports on a new British memorial to those who have been killed following the Second World War. The article notes that there is no monument like it on British soil, because the Commonwealth War Graves Commission stopped burying soldiers after the end of the Second World War.

The new memorial reminds me of the fact that the process of commemoration in Britain is still an ongoing one. Although my dissertation research focuses on the war memorials of the First World War period, the tradition of memorialization that they inaugurated remains.

Another interesting part of the report is the fact that this new memorial includes space for another 16,000 or so names in anticipation of future needs. Compared with the 1920s when architects and engineers struggled to find room on the Menin Gate for all of the names it had to contain, building a memorial in part to anticipate future needs is something relatively new.

Since the end of the Second World War 16,000 British servicemen and their auxiliary forces have lost their lives in a variety of circumstances. Yesterday the Queen opened a national memorial to them, where relatives and friends of the lost can reflect before a carved list of their names.

There is nothing quite like it, and there has long been a call for a memorial to take over from where the Commonwealth War Graves Commission closes its books at 1948. There are memorials around the world to particular regiments, campaigns and even individuals, but no national shrine on home soil.

Public subscription, National Lottery funding, and a modest £1.5 million government contribution from the sale of a Trafalgar commemorative coin, have enabled completion of the £7 million National Armed Forces Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire, near the geographical centre of England. Trustees still need to raise a further £1 million to ensure that the memorial is properly maintained.

The names carved in the Portland stone walls span age, class and ethnicity. They include Earl Mountbatten of Burma, killed by an IRA bomb in the Irish Republic in 1979, and Jabron Hashmi of the Intelligence Corps, killed in Afghanistan last year, the first Muslim in the British Armed Forces of recent times to lose his life.

The complete article from The London Times: “A monument at last for the fallen of modern times”

The New York Times travel section includes a narrative about journeying to the American First World War cemeteries in France, particularly the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery.

It’s strange that a military graveyard should be so lovely, but lovely is the only way to describe the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, 26 miles northwest of Verdun. As exquisite as any French park or chateau grounds, the cemetery is a formal garden of perfectly clipped trees, immaculate lawns, fountains and roses and long white rows of grave markers. Given its beauty, it’s also strange how empty the place is — and stranger still since this is the largest American military cemetery in Europe, the burial site of 14,246 United States service members who died in the war to end all wars.

The complete article in the New York Times: “On Hallowed Ground, a Place of Painful Beauty”

The CNN and Associated Press report that NASA is rethinking its plans and procedures for dealing with the medical problems and/or death of an astronaut in space. Unfortunately for my own research into the history of the bureaucratization of government concern for the dead, NASA has not decided on a policy — merely that it should have one.

But on other topics — such as steps for disposing of the dead and cutting off an astronaut’s medical care if he or she cannot survive — the document merely says these are issues for which NASA needs a policy.

The full article on CNN’s website: “NASA rethinking death in mission to Mars”

Estonia removed a statue of a Red Army soldier in the capital city of Tallinn because it symbolized the occupation by the Soviet Union. They moved the statue to a military cemetery outside the city.

The case shows what powerful resonance the memory of the war dead has in many societies. The reference to the Russian military cemetery in Estonia makes me wonder what sort of international agreements are being negotiated now, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, to care for the cemeteries in newly independent former parts of the country.

Estonia’s decision to remove the statue of a Red Army soldier sparked riots last week. One Russian died and 153 were injured in clashes with police.

Protesters are now blockading Estonias Moscow embassy, according to officials.

Estonians say the soldier symbolised Soviet occupation. Russians say it is a tribute to those who fought the Nazis.

It has now been relocated to a military cemetery, away from the centre of the capital Tallinn.

The complete article from the BBC: Estonia unearths Soviet war dead

A disturbing report that the Ministry of Defence admitted that it mixed up the bodies of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Body parts of British soldiers who died on operations in Afghanistan have been mixed up and placed in the wrong coffins.

What interests me about this report is the implicit assumption that the state has a responsibility to care for its dead soldiers in a particular way. Britain no longer follows the procedures it developed during the First World War that involved identifying soldiers’ remains for burial on or near the battlefields. Instead of legislating that all war dead remain overseas, the policy in recent years has been to repatriate their remains.

It is also interesting to contrast the forensic work undertaken to identify these remains with what was done after the First World War and after the Second World War. Faced with tremendously more remains to identify, dispersed over much larger areas, and lacking present-day medical technology to assist with identification, the Imperial War Graves Commission did a remarkably good job of preventing these sorts of mistakes from occurring. Even their work was not perfect.

I wonder the precise moment during the past few decades when the job of identifying remains on the battlefield was no longer for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission but instead for the Ministry of Defence.

The full article from the Guardian: Family shocked as MoD admits body parts error

The BBC has a report on the topic as well: Body of UK serviceman in mix-up

The bodies of several British soldiers killed in Iraq were flown back for burial in the U.K. This is indicative of how government policy related to the war dead has changed from the period of the World Wars. I need to determine the exact moment that the policy shifted. I think it was during the mid-1970s because by the point of the Falklands War in the early 1980s British war dead were brought back.

The coffins were placed in hearses waiting to transfer the bodies into the care of the Wiltshire coroner.

As the procession of vehicles passed through the town Wootton Bassett a few miles away, local councillors and members of the public stood in silence as a mark of respect.

The bodies were taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where post mortem examinations will be conducted.

On Wednesday, a sunset ceremony was held at a base in Basra, southern Iraq, before the bodies were flown to the UK.

The complete story from BBC News: “Soldiers’ bodies flown back to UK”

question about whether Jesuit martyrs bodies were shipped back or not
claim that Germans were, others were not

jesuits in india
“the art of dying in the tropics”

This opinion piece in the Daily Mail argues that overseas British cemeteries, specifically those in France, are places where the flag is more prominently displayed than it is many places in Britain.

This is the last great show of true Britain anywhere on Earth. And it is in France, in sunshine and all through the seaside villages behind the monuments on all those famous D-Day beaches.

Then another woman said she was trying to get her daughter to emigrate to Australia. She knew a lot of people who were doing it.

“England’s finished,” she had got around to thinking. “This is about the last place you can go to and pretend it isn’t.”

Which was being said in a street that looked like the old days of Britain, with bunting and flags and happy people showered with memories. But the street was in Normandy, France.

The complete article in the Daily Mail: Corner of France where it will be forever England

A piece from the BBC about the anniversary of the Falklands war that focuses on the efforts to commemorate the dead from both sides. Britain will allow an Argentine ceremony on the disputed islands later this year.

The complete article from BBC News: UK ‘regret’ over Falklands dead