It is now 110 years since the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. The passage of time must not be allowed to dim our consciousness of the appalling slaughter wrought by the two world wars of the 20th century, nor to diminish our respect and gratitude for the sacrifice of lives that was necessary to preserve the freedoms that we enjoy today.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission plays an important role in preserving our collective memory of this sacrifice. The Club was grateful to Brian Joyce, a veteran with 34 years of military service, for coming to talk to us on 23 September about the work of the Commission.

The inspiration for the Commission came from Sir Fabian Ware, head of a Red Cross ambulance unit working with the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1914, searching for missing men. He felt that the registration of graves was not enough, and that there should be memorials that would last for ever, that were worthy of the sacrifice that had been made. His ideas led to the establishment in May of 1917 of the Imperial War Graves Commission. Renamed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, now with the Princess Royal as patron, and involving participation of the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and South Africa, the Commission is a global organisation, caring for war graves at 23,000 locations in more than 150 countries and territories. They commemorate almost 1.7 million individuals, with the aim of ensuring that all the Commonwealth men and women who died during both world wars are commemorated in a manner befitting their sacrifice.

The work includes continuing research to augment the records with personal details of those who died, re-dedicating graves where previously unknown individuals can now be identified, along with the maintenance of the global estate of gravestones and memorials by a multinational workforce of stone masons and gardeners. A recent example followed the discovery in 2010 of 250 bodies found near the Somme, identified as Australian and British. A new cemetery was placed there.

Continuing with the statistics, the Commission has now constructed 2,500 war cemeteries and plots, erected headstones over graves and, where the remains are missing, the names of the dead are inscribed on permanent memorials. More than a million burials are now commemorated at military and civil sites around the world.

The Commission strives to ensure their sites remain well visited so remembrance of the war dead continues. They have created information centres, volunteering opportunities and education programmes designed to engage and educate generations to come.

Brian told us that the closest memorials to us are a small one at Lawnswood, and a larger one at Stonefall Cemetery in Harrogate. The largest cemetery is Tyne Cot, Belgium, which contains close to 12,000 burials from WW1, with 70% unidentified and described as ‘known only to God’.

In asking questions, Rotarian Raj Menon reminded us that 175,000 Indian soldiers had died, fighting in war zones such as Gallipoli in WW1 and Alamein in WW2. Brian acknowledged that Commonwealth war dead have been insufficiently represented, but not through deliberate

discrimination. The practice of cremation has meant a small number of headstones commemorate those that fell, but where possible, the names are on memorials but not headstones.

In this connection, it was good to see on Look North this week that a report by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission acknowledged that hundreds of thousands of black and Asian troops have not been commemorated in the same way as their white comrades. On 6 November 2024 there was unveiled in the Memorial Gardens in Bradford an impressive Commonwealth memorial made in Yorkshire Stone. It commemorates men and women from the Pacific, the Caribbean, Canada, India and Africa: people from a variety of faiths and cultural backgrounds.

A footnote. Brian explained that the Ministry of Defence commemorates service men and women who die as a result of injuries sustained during service outside the World Wars. Their graves, if adjacent to Commonwealth war graves, may also be looked after by the Commission, but responsibility lies with the Ministry of Defence.

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