Graves Registration Commission/Directorate of Graves Registration & Enquiries/I.W.G.C. Record Glossary

5) The most exciting list fragment is one that is headed ‘Nominal roll in accordance with War Office Letters No 45/E.F./3101 (AG.1R) dated 11-18 and 3-8-18 (45 is the number used in the War Office Registry Scheme for Casualty related matters on instructions and is more often associated with C2 Casualties, A.G.1.R instructions often used the number 35 when dealing with Record Office matters)’, from the Battalion Ledger including the 1st Battalion The Rifle Brigade, a page containing casualties from January to February 1917 . Here there is less information than the last example discussed and I have not been able to trace the letter referred to in its heading to a surviving Army Council Instruction (the formal means for recording many but not all memoranda/instructions that went out from the War Office). The list may be an example of one produced simply to meet the needs of D.G.R.E. for a nominal roll of the dead.  It appears to be a stripped-down version of the information required by the Registrar General to be recorded and then sent to the General Registry Office after the official end of the War (it lacks Country of Birth and Place of Death compared to the G.R.O. lists). Along with the other fragments mixed together to form the BattalionLedgers (with often different types of list mixed together) it helps show how the information in the Ledgers was produced by Record Offices keeping a record for several different divisions in the War Office. This meant that the Record Offices would always have the information on casualties to hand to produce lists, often cannabalising lists produced for different purposes.

There was also the range of official records including information on casualties that the Record Offices were meant to keep on the soldiers under their care together with the various Casualty Forms such as Army Form B 103 (click here for some examples of Army forms used to record casualty information) which were returned from the Army Record sections based at 3rd Echelon (the personnel part of an expeditionary force) in the various theatres of war where these forces operated.

Battalion Ledgers and the Work Checking/Adding to the Information in Soldiers Died In The Great War (S.D.G.W.) and Officers Died In The Great War (O.D.G.W.)

Why this fragment is exciting is that A.G.1 R from 1918 was responsible in the War Office for Army Record Offices (the division was itself a result of reorganisation of the Adjutant General’s Department in 1918, earlier another Adjutant General’s division AG2 covered the same area). In 1919/1921 A.G.1 R was responsible for getting record offices to produce the volumes of S.D.G.W. (Officers Died in the Great War was produced separately in 1919 by MS3 Casualties, a War Office division which dealt with this issue during the Great War) and for the first time we can identify the part of the War Office which oversaw S.D.G.W. Click here for evidence for A.G.1 R’s role in S.D.G.W. and here for the structure/roles/personnel of A.G.1 R between 1918-1920 as shown in the War Office Directory. It is also important as the communication I have seen between A.G.1 R and the Record Offices makes it clear that beyond asking that Army Record Offices to stick to the agreed terminology (i.e. using the right terms such as K.I.A. when it has been decided that a missing casualty is dead rather than the old MPD (Missing Presumed Dead) which is used many times in the Ledgers) it was not able to check the factual content of the S.D.G.W. volumes (which makes the disclaimer as to accuracy at the beginning of S.D.G.W. volumes even more understandable). A.G.1 R makes it clear that it does not have the manpower to check the contents of S.D.G.W. for accuracy (the only organisation that could have done this in 1919-1921 was C2 Casualties and they were being gradually wound down, finally disbanding by October 1921).

A.G.1.R was also the organisation that was keen to protect Record Offices from demands, at a time of lots of work (preparing list and papers for medals, plaques, pensions, demobilisation etc) for Army Record Offices related to ‘Aftermath’ work from the Great War, when the number of clerks was constantly being reduced. As such A.G.1 R was the part of the War Office that I.W.G.C. had to approach to be given general permission to use Record Offices for verification processes and in the early 1920s this was very much a struggle between the A.G.1. R/The War Office and I.W.G.C. about how much time/resource in the Record Offices I.W.G.C. would be allowed (by the early 1920s I.W.G.C. had to fund clerks in the Record Offices for this work (see C.W.G.C. Archive WG 219/4 Memorials to the Missing: Nominal Rolls and Battalion Ledgers: Lists of for a note dated 4 January 1924 from the War Office asking that I.W.G.C. continue to provide funds for additional clerks for I.W.G.C. related work, at a time when clerks employed on other so-called ‘Aftermath’ work like medals was being greatly reduced).

A.G.1.R. were at the forefront of stating that the I.W.G.C. must accept S.D.G.W. as the basis for its memorials to the missing and that S.D.G.W. would be sufficient for I.W.G.C. purposes, meaning according to A.G.1 R that Record Offices should be disturbed as little as possible, despite knowing as the commissioning part of the War Office that it had not been properly checked and according to A.G.1 R in an admonishment to Record Offices to be accurate that ‘As the books are for sale for the public in the ordinary manner, it is obviously undesirable that any such error in a War Office official publications should be brought to notice by members of the public (click here for two surviving pages of instructions for compiling S.D.G.W. sent out to Record Offices by A.G.1 R from which the quote is taken)’.

The Director of Records Henry Chettle noted that in comparisons made between the BattalionLedgers and S.D.G.W., the entries in the BattalionLedgers were only accurate 40% of the time (he presumably meant all details reliable) compared to 60% of the time with S.D.G.W which is still rather inaccurate, highlighting the value of the CWGC Registers as verified/cross checked versions of S.D.G.W. when it comes to the names of the missing (C.W.G.C. Archive W.G. 219/4 Box 1015 Memorials to the Missing: Nominal Rolls & Battalion Ledgers: Lists of: I.W.G.C. Director of Records to the Adjutant General (31/3/1922). We should see the lists in the BattalionLedgers as a mix between the lists sent to the Record Offices by C2 Casualties and the work of the wartime Record Offices. The Record Offices produced their own lists based on information passed to them from C2 Casualties together with information sent back to them to file with the casualty’s documents, such as the Army Form B 103 Casualty Sheets and other related paperwork (click here for some of the Army Forms which were used to record casualty information). The later S.D.G.W. (and O.D.G.W.) were the work of organisations holding lots of information but working under great pressure during the period 1919-1920. The Record Offices were under pressure from the sheer volume of ‘aftermath’ of the war work they faced and M.S.3. Casualties was merged back into M.S.3 after 1920 with O.D.G.W. its final published record in October 1919 setting out officer casualties during the Great War.

Over and above the BattalionLedgers and S.D.G.W. the most accurate of the post-war Record Office produced publications were the death records passed to the G.R.O. in early 1921 which had longer than either the BattalionLedgers or their successor S.D.G.W. to be checked and verified by the Record Offices. This is why the WW1 G.R.O. records have been of such use to researchers looking for non-commemorations. All of these records reflect a continuing process of verification and checking of casualty lists which went on in the Record Offices until 1921, rather than entirely discrete records produced only for one purpose. Many Army Record Offices had also passed lists of post Armistice deaths to the official Commission last commemoration date of 31 August 1921, including some of details of those who died from the effects of their war service but had left the Army before their death (C.W.G.C. Archive WG 219/4 Box 1015 Memorials to the Missing: Nominal Rolls & Battalion Ledgers: Lists Of: Post-Armistice Deaths. Fisher M.M. Branch to Director of Records (27 November 1922)). However it is stated in a note on the C.W.G.C. Archive file WG 219/4 Memorials to the Missing: Nominal Rolls & Battalion Ledgers: Lists of dated 19 January 1927 to Mr Sillar of the I.W.G.C. that Post Armistice deaths recorded in the Ledgers mostly came from Part II Orders (see here for a general example of Part II Orders) but that they were no longer sent to D.G.R. & E./I.W.G.C. from approximately February 1920. The suggestion was made in the same note that the Commission should approach the Registrar General to fill Post-Armistice gaps in the I.W.G.C.’s records (Ibid: 27 January 1927). In effect we are looking at the same pool of information reproduced in different forms for the various customers of the Record Offices.

Marking up with Grave (G) or (M) S.D.G.W. and some Battalion Ledgers

Other than the Ledgers there is also interesting information concerning the way that S.D.G.W. volumes were marked up by I.W.G.C. clerks before being punch carded, with G if there was also a certified record of the burial, a Special or Kipling Memorial or the burial  or the casualty had died in the U.K.   M if the casualty burial site was unknown, lost without being marked by a special or Kipling Memorial, the burial site was only provisionally confirmed or an isolated burial (C.W.G.C. Archive W.G. 219/4 Box 1015 Memorials to the Missing: Nominal Rolls & Battalion Ledgers: Lists of: Marking S.D.G.W. Books (no date given)). The same marking up system was also used by clerks looking at some of the Battalion Ledger entries, for example the Australian Lebanon, Egypt, Syria roll has Gs and Ms also written in by I.W.G.C. clerks, indicating whether there is a registered and certified grave or not. The entries in S.D.G.W. were compared against the BattalionLedgers and also the Enquiry Card index/files.

It also appears that the information in some of the Battalion Ledgers (presumably those dealing with the Dominions) were punch carded according to a memorandum written by Douglas Cockerell, the man responsible for producing the Registers and the technical aspects of the punch carding process see (C.W.G.C. Archive W.G. 219/4/2 Box 1015 Memorials to the Missing Obtaining Correct Lists:  Machine Carding Grave Cases. Printing Adviser to Colonel Oswald I.W.G.C. Mr Davidson (15 May 1924)) alongside the lists for the British Army made from S.D.G.W./O.D.G.W. From the punch cards lists of the Missing were printed via a tabulator (printer), which were then sent to Army Record Offices for checking of the details and the additions of names so that Final Verification could be completed with the next-of-kin (inscriptions and names plus any mistakes picked up by the n.o.k.). The C.W.G.C. register was the ultimate verified and checked version of the information which had been through casualty lists and BattalionLedgers (plus information from the D.G.R.E’s own wartime records).  The I.W.G.C. also had to gather information not included in the relevant volumes of S.D.G.W. and some not O.D.G.W. for a number of the Corps, specifically the units of deceased member of Corps such as the various parts of the Royal Artillery (R.F.A, R.G.A, R.H.A ), R.A.S.C. and even two units of the Guards (Ibid: Memorials to the Missing – France and Belgium: J.W. Fisher to Director of Records (5 July 1922)). This information was vital if the casualties name was going to be placed on the right Memorial commemorating the right place and time.

In 1924 Cemetery Registers Branch (C.R. Branch, part of the Directorate of Records) tried to make a case for their own set of S.D.G.W. volumes as they estimated that they made 800 visits a week to the sets held by Memorials to the Missing Branch or the set in the Director of Records room. The information was needed according to C.R. Branch to help place casualties when Cemetery Register forms were returned either with unreadable details or missing details making it hard to identify the individual related to the form (C.W.G.C. Archive WG 267 Pt2 Box 1027 Soldiers Died In The Great War: Gibbs C.R. Branch to Director of Records (19 October 1925)). This request was rejected partly on the grounds of cost but also partly as the volumes would need to be marked up/corrected as had other sets (see above) otherwise the information could be misleading (Ibid: Douglas Cockerell Joint Director of Records (4 November 1925)).

The C.W.G.C. Battalion ‘Deaths of POWs in Turkish hands’ is also fascinating for different reasons, partly because it draws on information from a different range of sources to most of the BattalionLedgers (which I will explore in the completed work) but also as the form is an adaption of otherwise long lost forms used by the War Office to note down the location of P.O.W.s. (C2 Casualties was just one of the parts of the War Office doing this).

The North Russian Expeditionary Force: Battalion Ledgers, Soldiers Died In The Great War and Registrar General’s Records

A 1928 I.W.G.C. note reveals that all three sources were used in combination to establish the missing from this force (see C.W.G.C. Archive WG 219/4 Memorials to the Missing: Nominal Rolls & Battalion Ledgers: Lists of: North Russia Exp. Force. Note to Mr Gibb I.W.G.C. (19 March 1928)). A reference to the I.W.G.C. sending clerks to look at the Part II Orders for the Army of the Black Sea  can be found by clicking here and looking at Part II Orders.

Burial Sheet or Return /Base Sheet [Numbers]:

See also S.S.P. Files:, Chaplains and Divisional/Corps Burial Returns and LS (Location sheet references):

Numbers (sometimes including the following letters alongside numbers) written by clerks on Graves Registration Report Forms, examples can be found:

1) Here. ‘S.D.G.W. [S.D.G.W. Soldiers Died in The Great War:] and Burial Return 22738 (from a Graves Registration Report Form for Euston Road Cemetery, see Private 14886 S Marritt Machine Gun Corps (Infantry) who died on 10 January 1917)’.

2) Here. ‘Bur. Sheet 22776G’ and ‘Bur. Sht 22776G (from the Graves Registration Report Forms for Delsaux Farm Cemetery, see Driver 5038 James Ernest Houghton Australian Field Artillery who died on 12 May 1917)’.

3) Here. ‘Base sheet 59278’** presumably relates to either burial reports, lists compiled from burial reports or casualty lists returned from the Army Record sections based at Rouen, known as 3rd Echelon (the personnel part of an expeditionary force). Information about the role of Base and other casualty lists within the Commission and its War Office predecessors can be found in the entry for Battalion Ledgers:. Information about Base lists can be found with the Battalion Ledger entry in the section ‘Parts of the Battalion Ledgers come from the Casualty Lists’.

** The Comprehensive Report Form entry for Chapelle British Cemetery relates to the crossing out of the incorrect identification of a Private 17189 Patrick Collins West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own) attd. 16th T.M. Bty who died on 19 September 1918, who was in reality buried at Trefcon British Cemetery (for his records at Trefcon see here. The Graves Registration Report Form from which Collins was removed can be found under Private 63066 Arthur Edward Spencer Steel Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment) who also died on 19 September 1918.

4) Here. ‘BS/97529’. Found on a Graves Registration Report Form for Brown’s Road Military Cemetery, Festubert (see Lance Corporal 240856 J.H. Cockcroft Lancashire Fusiliers who died on 11 April 1917) the same form also features a Burial Sheet/Return number ‘9703G’ in the next entry after Cockcroft’s for Private 242509 (written 242059 on the GRRF) W Evans also from the Lancashire Fusiliers. These examples illustrate two problems with interpreting these numbers. Firstly is the ‘BS’ acronym a burial sheet or a Base Sheet (plus see 2) above)? Secondly a comparison of the numbers given across a range of cemeteries shows that the sequence of numbers for these reports did not follow the date of death, with for example another ‘2632G’ reference used with Private 15657 S.T. Wiggett Royal Fusiliers who died on 26 January 1917 and is buried at Hamel Military Cemetery (see Graves Registration, here). The chronological discrepancies can be explained by differences in the time of official reporting and/or discovery of burials/graves.

5) Other number and letter combinations which presumably are related to burial sheets/returns and base sheets are less clear. For example see ‘3029a’ here (see Graves Registration Report Form under Graves Registration for Private 3209 W.J. Land Regiment (Royal Fusiliers) who died on 27 June 1916) or ‘15689U’ here(see Graves Registration Report Form for Private 2144 T Bolton Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who died on 16/05/1915).

6) Here, ‘77901’. These numbers can cover mass burials (see Graves Registration Report Form under Graves Registration for Private 46008 H.E. Cox Royal Berkshire Regiment who died on 10 December 1918) and sometimes adjacent graves, see here, ‘62695’ (see Graves Registration Report Form for Private Angus Scott Anthony 307160 Tank Corps who died along with Private 304889 A.J. Hellens Tank Corps on the 27 September 1918. SSP references seem to be the preferred means for noting multiple entries from burial reports across cemeteries, see: S.S.P. Files:

7) Burial Sheet or Return /Base Sheet [Numbers] are usually associated with the burial records for Other Ranks, with a separate sequence of numbers for officer casualties.

Three Figure Numbers associated with Officer Burials

8) The officer number sequences fall between 600 to just under 900 and were often written by the clerks in brackets. Examples include:

(a) ‘(660)’ at Flatiron Copse Cemetery (see here, Graves Registration Report Form, under Graves Registration for Second Lieutenant Henry Charles Gainey Devonshire Regiment who died on 14 July 1916.
(b) ‘791’ at two different places within Fifteen Ravine British Cemetery. Here (see Graves Registration), Lieutenant G.T. Carre Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) and here who died on 20 November 1917 and Second Lieutenant V.R.R. Filmer 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys)who died on 25 November 1917. An ‘Unknown British Airman’ (who died or was buried on 30 November 1917) is also bracketed with Filmer under ‘791’ in the adjacent grave. Filmer (plus the ‘Unknown British Airman’) and Carre were concentrated into Fifteen Ravine British Cemetery from different map coordinates following the Armistice.
(c) ‘(801)’ is used at Hermies Hill British Cemetery (see here), whilst'(802)’ is in use at Guards Cemetery (Windy Corner) in Belgium (see here), both are in the Pas de Calais. 2nd Lieutenant G Jones of the Lincolnshire Regiment died on 10 September 1918 (buried at Hermies Hill ‘(801)’) and Captain R.A. Colvin of the West Yorkshire Regiment (buried at Guards Cemetery (Windy Corner) ‘(802)’) on 15 March 1915. Both were concentrated after the Armistice into the respective cemeteries.
(d) An example from Belgium comes from New Irish Farm Cemetery (see here, ‘854’) where Lieutenant Ian Knox Hamilton Royal Warwickshire Regiment who died on 1 June 1915 and Captain Donald Kenworthy Somerset Light Infantry who died on 17 May 1915 are on the same page of the Graves Registration report a few graves apart under ‘(854)’. In a different row of the cemetery Captain Frank Elliot Belchier East Lancashire Regiment who died on 20 May 1915 also has the ‘(854)’ next to his name on his entry on a Graves Registration Report Form (see here). Belchior, Hamilton and Kenworthy were all concentrated from the same area on the map.

‘C2’ & ‘C’ Concentration & Exhumation Codes:

The code ‘C2’ (Not to be confused with C2 Cas/C2 Casualties, see next Glossary entry) was often written in red ink on Graves Registration Report Forms, as per the following written entry at the top of a form submitted by D.G.R. & E. to the I.W.G.C. in 1921. This entry is unusual as it sets out the meaning of the ‘C2’ code:

‘Certified that all Concentrations in this Plot are marked C2, in red ink.’

Extract from a Graves Registration Report Form for Highland Cemetery, Roclincourt, Pas de Calais. For the full page see: Graves Registration Private 265642 Alex Bruce Calder Gordon Highlanders who died on 9 April 1917 https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/262431/calder,-alex-bruce/

The following extract shows how the ‘C2’ code was often written in the right hand column of Graves Registration Report Forms, with ‘C2’ sometimes written besides every grave that has been concentrated, or as below, in another extract from a form for Roclincourt a number of concentrated graves indicated with C2 next to a bracket:

Extract from a Graves Registration Report Form for Highland Cemetery, Roclincourt, Pas de Calais. For the full page see: Graves Registration Sapper F.C. Hilton Canadian Railway Troops who died on 4 April 1917 https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/262499/hilton,-/

The code ‘C’ was sometimes used for the same purpose, as is made clear by this entry at the bottom of another Graves Registration Report Form, this time from 1922 and the I.W.G.C.:

‘C – Bodies have been regrouped in the C[em?]…’

Extract from a Graves Registration Report Form for Zantvoorde Churchyard, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. For the full page see: Graves Registration Captain Sir Frank Stanley Day Rose 10th (Prince of Wales’s Own Royal) Hussars who died on 26 October 1914 https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/160649/rose,-sir-frank-stanley-day/

C2 & MS3 Casualties: 

(On Graves Registration Report Forms – found under Graves Registration at the bottom of the linked pages – see also: ‘C2 Cas’, ‘C2 Cas List’, ** & ‘MS3 Cas’)

** ‘C2 Cas List’ is associated in a number of entries with casualties from the Chinese Labour Corps, as seen in the example which is linked to the details of Labourer 90265 Huang Chin Piao who died on 9 September 1919.

C2 Casualties

C2 Casualties was a division of the War Office responsible for casualty lists and the main casualty card index (see Battalion Ledgers). From 30^th April 1920 C2 Casualties only dealt with matters relating to casualties amongst other ranks from on or before that date. For the G.R.C./D.G.R. & E./I.W.G.C. C2 Casualties was responsible for providing confirmation of death and also checking casualty details via the Location Sheet system.

On the 30^th September 1921 C2 Casualties ceased to function as an active division of the War Office, its functions relating to casualties between August 1914 to 30 April 1920 (other ranks) and August 1914 to 11 November 1920 (officers) having been merged with those of the Disposal of Records Section (later R. Records) responsible for looking after the so-called ‘Aftermath’ archive of papers and records generated by the British Army during WW1. Shortly after the merger an official of the newly merged branch informed the I.W.G.C. Director of Records that the C2 casualty figures for the War were ‘approximate’ at best (C.W.G.C. Archive WG 1294/3/2 Box 1084 Exhumation, France and Belgium. Army Exhumation Staff. Note dated 5/10/1921 and letter dated 6/10/1921 from the Disposal of Records Section to Director of Records I.W.G.C.).

C2 (Casualties) ‘Duties’ from the 1919 War Office Directory

‘…Casualties— (a) All ranks.—General questions regarding system of reporting casualties. Receipt, registration, distribution and publication of war casualties, including lists of prisoners of war, and investigation of all questions arising thereon, including all references overseas for further information. Investigations of unofficial reports of casualties. Circulation of lists of missing; correspondence with enemy countries regarding identity, health, or death of prisoners of war. Maintenance of regimental lists of prisoners of war for purposes of Central Prisoners of War Committee and others. Organisation of arrangements with Enquiry Department of British Red Cross and Order of St. John. Decisions as to acceptance of death on the basis of unofficial reports or lapse of time. Statistics. Negotiation with insurance companies, banks, &c., regarding War Office certificates of death.
(b) N.C.O.s and men.— Record of, and correspondence regarding casualties to warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and men. Enquiry office for soldiers’ casualties. Issue of permits to visit soldiers dangerously ill in France. (Record of, and correspondence regarding, officers’ casualties, except as provided above, are dealt with by M.S.3—Casualties.)
Actuarial, &c. (C. 2 (b)). – The following duties are suspended, as far as possible, during the war:—

Actuarial calculation of effect of proposals concerning the Army and Departments.
Account of the Indian contribution to non-effective payments.
Preparation of general returns and statistics, including the General Annual Report,
and all statistics of the Territorial Force (but see under C.5)…’

M.S.3 Casualties

M.S.3 (Casualties) was a part of the Military Secretary’s Department at the War Office, part of the War Office structure for dealing with the management of officers which was separated from the management of other ranks (the personnel management of other ranks which was run through the Army Record Offices). M.S.3. (Casualties) Territorial Force covered casualties amongst officers in the Territorial Force. M.S.3. (Casualties) (both Territorial and non-Territorial) from 1916 onwards provided G.R.C./D.G.R. & E. with copies of the King’s Lists (see King’s List) and also confirmed officer casualty’s details (C2 Casualties was also responsible for confirmation of death and inclusion of officers in the casualty lists). M.S.3. (Casualties) was also responsible for the publication of the record of officers killed in the Great War, Officers Died in the Great War (O.D.G.W.) in 1919. M.S.3 (Casualties) and M.S.3 (Casualties) Territorial Force were both disbanded and their work absorbed into the other parts of M.S.3. by the end of 1920.

M.S.3 (Casualties) ‘Duties’ from the 1918 War Office Directory

‘…Questions relating to casualties to officers of the Regular Army and Special Reserve: –
Registration of addresses of next-of-kin.
Notification of all casualties to next-of-kin.
Indexing of all casualties, including prisoners of war.
Answering of enquiries with regard to casualties.
Preparation of Press Communiques relative to casualties.
Issue of permits to relatives to visit France.
Registration of death reports for official circulation.
Preparation and forwarding of “King’s” list of officers dead or presumed dead.
Notification of addresses of next-of-kin to the Director of Graves Registration and Enquiries in cases of death overseas.
Preparation of lists of missing officers.
Review of the same with a view to presumption of death.
Return of correspondence of officers killed or missing…’

Canadian Ledgers:

In April 1921 the demobilisation of the Canadians (presumably Canadian service personnel) based at the Baker Street Offices of the I.W.G.C. was discussed, with a civilian Canadian clerk replacement to be based in the Registrar’s Branch (see Registrar’s Branch), to specifically work on the Canadian Ledger Sheets.

‘The numbers shown as ‘Ottawa Ref. Nos.’ in some of the Canadian nominal rolls in the Battalion Ledgers are a link to another WW1 related document, the Canadian Circumstances of Death Registers. The latter are pretty familiar to WW1 researchers interested in the Canadian Army. For more about the Registers see here: https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/mass-digitized-archives/circumstances-death-registers/Pages/circumstances-death-registers.aspx

From 1919 the I.W.G.C. (see I.W.G.C.) who had taken over responsibility for the Card Index from D.G.R. & E. (see D.G.R. & E.) continued to correct and expand the Index. According to Longworth’s official history of the C.W.G.C., the I.W.G.C. when it took over the Card Index (probably in 1919) found a Enquiry Card Index system arranged into different boxes under regiments/corps and regimental depots (Philip Longworth (1967) The Unending Vigil: The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Pen & Sword: Barnsley: p. 76). Longworth exaggerates when he uses the word ‘found’ as the Enquiry Branch which ‘owned’ the Enquiry Card Index system simply transferred from the D.G.R.E. to the Commission along with its systems.  Enquiries Branch since the Autumn of 1917 been arranged into sections that reflected the grouping of multiple regiments under geographically based Army Record Offices and corps with their own individual record offices (see Enquiries Branch). Longworth also does not mention that Communal and Comprehensive Reports (See G.R.R. and Communal Reports) were used to compile information geographically before the old wartime Card Index was replaced by a new I.W.G.C. Card Index. War surplus card index drawers were acquired in 1920 to provide 3,000 drawers for a new card index to underpin the work of producing cemetery registers (CWGC 24th Finance Committee Meeting 13 July 1920: Cabinets for Card Indexes) D.Cockerell to Colonel Durham (17 May 1920)). Longworth states that they were now to be three indexes rather than one which was organised alphabetically by surname, country and regiment, occupying around 450 square feet (Longworth: pp. 76-77). With the decision to register War Graves in the United Kingdom as well as in the overseas theatres of War and also the process of correcting and verifying details the I.W.G.C. had for example in 1920-1921 made ‘Four hundred and twenty thousand new cards…correcting previous information and embodying fresh information’ (C.W.G.C. (1921) Annual Report of the Imperial War Graves Commission, 1920-1921. H.M.S.O.: London: p. 11). In 1924 Mr Swinstead of Enquiries Branch confirmed that alphabetical was the key arrangement for the Card Index meaning that errors picked up in regimental numbers were less important than if it had been organised by regimental number like so many military related records ((C.W.G.C. Archive W.G. 219/4 Box 1015 Memorials to the Missing: Mr Swinstead Enquiries to the Director of Records (23 August 1924)).

The Card Index was also used to help identify the missing, for Memorials to the Missing (see Memorials to the Missing including discussion of ‘Missing’ cards) and together with the information from Final Verification (see Final Verification) to produce the Cemetery and Memorial Registers. Ultimately the Imperial War Graves Commission Index to Cemtery And Memorial Registers of Those Who Fell In The War Indexes, produced using punch card technology (see here) come in part from the verified information in the IWGC Card Index, itself in large part derived from the original war time Card Index. The IWGC Card Index is likely to have been destroyed later in the 1930s as the information it contained (and the I.W.G.C. wanted to retain) had been recorded in the then existing complete run of Enquiry files, the Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing Registers and the printed  Indexes. Search slips made for Enquiries by the mid 1930s no longer mention the Card Index. The small number of surviving pre-WW2 Great War related Enquiry files preserve copies of the different cards described (almost all found to date are copies of cards from the original Card Index, not the post-war IWGC Card Index), although they include a very small number of cards compared to the size of the original Indexes. Enquiry files often include cards or fragments of cards for cases unrelated to the case described in the particular file that had been re-used to write notes to pass within the I.W.G.C. The surviving cards usually record information about who informed (often by role or unit rather than by name) the D.G.R. & E. (and its predecessors) about the burial (e.g. Chaplain, Corps Burial Officer etc.). This information is now lost for most of the WW1 casualties commemorated by the C.W.G.C.

There is evidence that Card Index cards were made for German burials (see S.S.P) and it is likely that index cards were made for all of the nationalities whose graves were reported by G.R.C./D.G.R. & E. before the information was passed on to the relevant national authorities (through the International Red Cross Committee in Geneva in the case of enemy nations before the end of WW1).

Cemetery Registers:

Responsible for the editing and publishing of the Cemetery Registers, clerks from Cemetery Registers also helped in the process of double checking the Memorials to the Missing lists for casualties who had a known grave.

Cem.Reg. Plan Nos, CR Plan Nos, Record Plan Nos:

See also Cemetery Registers:

Record Plans, sometimes called Sketch Record Plans, were originally made after a plot was full, with the record plan to be updated as further plots were filled, see Drawing Office & Survey: for the process involved. The vast majority of such record plans do not survive. The following is a surviving Sketch Record Plan from 1919 for three graves at Beauquesne Communal Cemetery:

The accompanying Grave numbers on the Graves Registration Report Form (G.R.R.F.) for Beauquesne Communal Cemetery can be seen below. In 1935 the remains were exhumed and moved to Gezaincourt Communal Cemetery Extension:

Both documents can be found here, under Concentration (see Concentration, Private 9828 William Edward Anderson Dorsetshire Regiment who died on 31 March 1917).

Examples of ‘Record Plan Nos’ that can be seen on Graves Registration Report Forms include the following numbers from Etaples Military Cemetery from sometime after 1918. The numbers before the brackets represent the new grave numbers (one of each pair has ‘A’ added to its number) of the double headstones replacing the paired crosses previously in place at Etaples. Private 34044 Ethelbert Sheppard Essex Regiment’s who died on 19 May 1917 (shown as B Shepperd on the G.R.R.F., see here) has the plot, row and grave reference of XVIII. [18] O. 26. and Corporal 26/1049 Sydney Luke Northumberland Fusiliers who also died on 19 May 1917 XVIII. [18] O. 26A (see here).

The Etaples Military Cemetery register was first published in multiple parts in 1923 and ‘Record Plan Nos’ numbers would have likely been added to the Graves Registration Report Form before the publication of the register and  before the production of the relevant Headstone Schedules. The Etaples Military Cemetery ‘Register Plan’ follows:

For the Etaples Military Cemetery Plan click here: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/503378/luke,-sydney/CemeteryPlan.ashx?id=56500

[Please note that as of 22 July 2020 the plan cannot be found on the CWGC website which is being upgraded, a new link will be added as soon as it becomes available]

Most surviving Record or Register Plan numbers refer to numbers added to Grave Registration Report Forms (G.R.R.F.) in accordance with the permanent numbering of the cemeteries, installation of headstones and the printing of the cemetery registers including plans. Perhaps the G.R.R.F. forms were used by clerks to work out the permanent numbering sequence before the ordering of permanent headstones and reconstruction of the cemeteries by I.W.G.C took place. Other examples can be found here:

See ‘Cem.Reg. Plan Nos [Cemetery Register Plan Numbers]’ for three Special Memorials at St Souplet British Cemetery

For a link to the document and the accompanying cemetery plan click here [Please note that as 22 July 2020 the plan is not on the CWGC website which is being upgraded] for the CWGC Casualty Archive record for Corporal 202205 W Higginson Manchester Regiment who died on 26 March 1918. The register volume for St Souplet was printed in 1930, with the stone Special Memorials for Higginson (and two other soldiers on the Graves Registration Report Form) erected sometime after 1925.

See ‘CR Plan Nos [Cemetery Register Plan Numbers]’for more Special Memorials (Sp. Mem.), this time at Moeuvres British Cemetery. Click here under Graves Registration and Cemetery Plan for the CWGC Casualty Archive record for Private 52554 J McKenzie Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) who died on 21 September 1918).

CG Series:

The CG/ file series is often associated with changes made to information regarding Canadian casualties, such as: names, units, date of death etc. For example see the Graves Registration Report entry for Private 132337 P.B. Olds 42nd Canadian Infantry who died on 3 November 1917 and who is buried at Passchendaele New British Cemetery. Apart from adding details about his unit and an almost correct service number, the amendments in red ink clearly state ‘File C.G. 28’: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/461429/olds,-/

Another amendment where a change was made in connection with a CG file (‘File G.G.84’) reference can be found in the same cemetery, in the Graves Registration Report entry for Sergeant 874765 Sigurdson 8th Battalion Canadian Infantry who died on 10 November 1917: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/461510/sigurdson,-/

Most C.G. entries on Graves Registration Reports only mention the G.G. acronym and a number, but do not include the word ‘file’. Examples include the amended Graves Registration Report entry for Private 902284 Arnold Gordon MacArthur of 42nd Battalion Canadian Infantry (‘C.G.379’), who died on 9 April 1917 and who is buried at Bois-Carre British Cemetery: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/618228/macarthur,-arnold-gordon/

In the same Graves Registration Report a reference to ‘auth Can Reg’ can be found next to the service number of Sergeant 703253 L.H. Brown 102nd Battalion Canadian Infantry who died on the same day as Private MacArthur: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/618051/brown,-lewis-henry/. For information on the Canadian Registers (under Canadian Ledgers) click here.

C.H.S., Commission Headstones Erected, Hdst, C.H., Jew[ish] C.H., CH etc.:

From 1920 onwards the Imperial War Graves Commission (I.W.G.C.) and its successor the Commonwealth War Graves Commission have used a series of acronyms or simply listed Headstones or Commission Headstones to indicate Commission Headstones on Graves Registration Report Forms (G.R.R.F.). A few examples together with years the forms were completed (or amended) can be found here:

1924: ‘Commission Headstones Erected’ from Fosse 10 Communal Cemetery Extension, Sains-En-Gohelle (see here, see earlier Graves Registration Report Form (stamped 1924) including Labourer 42904 Liu Pao Chang of the Chinese Labour Corps who died on 13 April 1919)

1926: ‘Hdst’ from Manchester Cemetery, Riencourt-Les-Bapaume (see here, Graves Registration Report Form including Private 200370 Anthony Keeley Manchester Regiment who died on 30 August 1918)

1934: ‘C.H.S.’ from London Cemetery and Extension (see here, Graves Registration Report Form including Private 15327 John Peat Montgomery of the Royal Scots Fusiliers who died on 12 August 1916)

1954: ‘C.H.’ from a WW2 casualty related Graves Registration Report Form (G.R.R.F.) from Coulvain Churchyard, Calvados (see here, G.R.R.F. including Flight Sergeant (Air Gunner) 1851507 William Charles Udell Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve who died on 30 June 1944) Note: The brackets indicate more than one name on a headstone.

1956: ‘Jew[ish] C.H.’ from a WW2 casualty related Graves Registration Report Form (G.R.R.F.) from Briey Communal Cemetery, Meurthe-et-Mosell (see here, G.R.R.F. including Flight Sergeant (Air Gunner) 1802543 Stanley Isidore Miller Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve who died on 24 February 1944).

1995: ‘Commission Headstone’ from “Y” Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel (see Graves Registration Report Form here, Unknown British Soldier [WW1])

2002: ‘CH’ from Combles Communal Cemetery Extension, Somme (see Graves Registration Report Form here, Unknown British Soldier [WW1])

CR Series Files:

Files used by the D.G.R.E and then I.W.G.C. staff in France and Belgium. C.R. stands for Central Registry and has its origins in a file series used by the British forces in France and Belgium during the Great War. A change to a cemetery record made under a CR reference is a sign that this change was made by staff based in France and Belgium, rather than under the authority of research conducted through the London headquarters, for example see the Grave Registration Report for the following: http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/491509/GALLAGHER,%20JOHN%20WALTER .  Also see the following CR referenced letter about concentration and exhumation of graves in 1936 under the supervision of the Head Office for the Central European District of the I.W.G.C. (see the second of the Concentration documents for this casualty): http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2945537/BARNLE,%20D

CR – Handwritten Cemetery Register Amendments to Graves Registration Report Forms (G.R.R.F.):

Handwritten amendments were sometimes made to Graves Registration Reports Forms based on the updated and verified information in the Cemetery Registers. The format and origin of the CR numbers written on the GRRF (often in red) can be seen from the following examples: CR1348 (from Cemetery Register number Fr1348 Fontaine-Au-Pire Cemetery, France, click here and see the Graves Registration documents for Corporal 10844 D.E. Murray East Lancashire Regiment who died on 13 May 1915), CR415 (Fr415 Gouzeaucourt New British Cemetery, France, click here and see the Graves Registration documents for Corporal 40471 Ernest John Lane Lincolnshire Regiment who died on 18 November 1918) and CR98 (Fr 98 Chocques Military Cemetery, France, click here and see the Graves Registration documents for Air Mechanic 2nd Class 77983 J.H. Renshaw RFC who died on 17 February 1918).

Dame Adelaide Livingstone’s Mission and Missing Prisoners of War:

For a page including sources for Dame Adelaide Livingstone’s Mission and the search for Missing Prisoners of War, some of who died either on the Western Front or whilst prisoners in Germany please click here.

D.G.R. & E.:

The Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries, the new name for the G.R.C. from February 1916 (Philip Longworth (1967) The Unending Vigil: The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Pen & Sword: Barnsley: p. 17). The new Directorate’s Headquarters was based in London by August 1916 (C.W.G.C. Archive C.W.G.C. 1/1/1/34 DGRE 8 Removal of Directorate to London from GHQ, France: Fabian Ware to the Adjutant General (27 August 1916)). Fabian Ware had moved to the London Office in May 1916 (Ibid: B.C. Childs D.P.S. (War Office?) to the Military Secretary (War Office) (19 May 1916)). The D.G.R. & E. had added responsibility for supervising units registering war graves in other theatres of war in which Commonwealth forces were involved, such as the Mediterranean and the Middle East. In March 1921 I.W.G.C. absorbed the headquarters and records of the Army based graves organisation the D.G.R. & E. in Europe (see C.W.G.C. Archive CWGC/1/1/1/38 Box 2033, Add 3/1/3 Taking over of D.G.R.E. by I.W.G.C. Transfer of duties between D.G.R. & E., France and I.W.G.C. France, joint memorandum (14 March 1921): p. 2), except for D.G.R. & E (Central Europe) which continued to work on establishing cemeteries in Germany and Central Europe for the Commonwealth P.O.W.s who had died in German custody or shortly after release from the camps (e.g. the Berlin Office of D.G.R. & E. was still in operation in 1922, an undated newspaper article (see C.W.G.C. Archive W.G. 436/1 Box 1037 Graves of British Prisoners of War in Germany) states that it closed down, having handed its remaining work to the I.W.G.C., in April 1922). The end of British Army work to find and exhume bodies in France and Belgium in September 1921 is discussed below in the entry for the Imperial War Graves Commission (click here to go to the entry).

Drawing Office & Survey:

In October 1917 the British Red Cross agreed to provide £200 for equipment and £50 per year to support the cost of a drawing office to support the production of plans and surveys of the war cemeteries (C.W.G.C. Archive Add 41116 Red Cross Record Office file: various correspondence October to November 1917). The Drawing Office began with an agreed establishment of one architect, six draughtsmen and two orderlies (Ibid: Sanctioned Establishment (26 November 1917)).  It was first established at Boulogne between late December 1917 to January 1918  (Ibid: various correspondence December 1917 to January 1919) and was moved in December 1918 to be close to the Imperial War Graves Commission Headquarters at Hesdin (Ibid: various correspondence 1918) then moved according to Longworth to Longuenesse near St.Omer in May 1919 (Philip Longworth (1967) The Unending Vigil: The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Pen & Sword: Barnsley: p. 59). The first head of the Drawing Office was Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Messer, who was a trained architect who had been with the Mobile Unit when it was first established in 1914.

The 1918 Directorate of Graves Registration And Enquiries Standing Orders mention the work of the surveyors (who after the Armistice included alongside R.E. officers some non-R.E. officers who were employed in this role) in relation to the final plan produced when a plot or cemetery was full and a final plan was submitted with a Comprehensive Report:

‘As soon as a plot is filled up the G.R. Unit Officer [Editor’s note: Graves Registration Unit Officer], in whose are cemetery is situated, will notify the D.A.D. [Editor’s note: Deputy Assistant Directors from D.G.R. & E. in charge of groups of Graves Registration Units in an Army Sector by 1917], who will see that a record plan (together with a small key plan] is made in strict accordance with the comprehensive report to be prepared at the same time, and signed by himself and his Survey Officer. The D.A.D. will then forward to D.G.R. & E., War Office [Editor’s note: H.Q. in London], a signed copy of the record plot plan, together with the comprehensive reports relating thereto and a copy of the small key plan of the whole cemetery showing the positions of all the plots and indicating clearly which are completed, and he will see that the original key plan is kept up to date.

When a cemetery is completed and closed a record plan of the whole cemetery will be made in strict accordance with the comprehensive report prepared at the same time. This plan will cancel all record plots previously made. D.A.D. will then forward to D.G.R. & E. France, a cloth tracing (rolled, not folded) of the record plan, accompanied by a complete and corrected series, in duplicate of the plot comprehensive reports relating to all the burials which have taken place in the cemetery. ‘

From Commonwealth War Graves Commission CWGC/1/1/1/38/3 38 Add 3/1/3 Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries – Standing Orders. Revised to 1^st May, pp. 11-12

A surviving copy of a pre-I.W.G.C. cemetery record plan can be seen for Polygon Wood Cemetery at the C.W.G.C. Archive [no reference]. The names of the Royal Engineer surveyor responsible (an officer) for the survey and the two n.c.o.s responsible for drawing up the plan can be found on the bottom left hand corner of the plan sheet. An X/Y 2320 Cemetery File reference is also given as the authority for striking the word ‘British’ out of the cemetery name [for the likely function of X/Y files see below].

EF:

A File series associated with more recent changes to CWGC graves e.g. http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/267626/DUFF,%20JOHN%20CAMPBELL

(The initial G has been changed to a C electronically in red on the electronic copy of the G.R.R.F.)

Effects:

In this context identity disks and other personal items often used for identification following exhumation. An example of the kind of effects often found can be seen in a Concentration report including Lance Serjeant Albert Barnes 202295 buried at Tyne Cot (see Concentration document): http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/461830/BARNES,%20ALBERT In the report the effects listed include five identity discs used to identify the burials, one envelope (presumably with a name or address) and a paybook (often known by its Army book number AB64) which would have featured the names and regimental details of the deceased. Sometimes effects were too decayed or dirty to be returned to next of kin, leading to the note ‘insanitary’ next to them.

Other items such as spoons could be used for identification as many items of equipment would have the individuals regimental number etched on written on them, provided there was some form of regimental identification as well (such as a numeral, metal badges worn on the shoulder epaulettes), see a page from Tyne Cot which records a variety of exhumed items, Lance Serjeant 240533 J Thom (Concentration document): http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/464886/THOM,%20J . Perhaps the most interesting item recorded here is a ‘Section Roll’, probably recording the names of the men in the Corporal’s section (about 12 men, including the corporal). Not just numbers but sometimes names were also found on items such as 7235 Thomas Elliot[t] where it is stated in the burial report ‘Elliot. E Name taken off gas mask…Identified by address found and communicated [Editor’s note: the entry presumably means next of kin and the burial form looks as if it was retyped to include this information after investigation at D.G.R. & E. in London] ’ see (Concentration documents): http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/457940/ELLIOTT,%20THOMAS

A very clear example of how much might be established through exhumation and investigation of the surviving evidence/effects can be seen from looking at one of the pages from the burial report for Hooge Crater, which features not just how the burials were identified through memorial crosses but how the discovery of the identity of one burial helped identify where to look for three other casualties noted to the left of that burial to be exhumed and identified. See Private 19410 William Southam (Concentration documents): http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/459341/SOUTHAM,%20WILLIAM  The statement on the burial return reads:

‘Memorial crosses for the first three names viz Southam, Thompson and Stephens were found in a corner of the old Cemetery placed there by an officer of the G.R. and E. [Editor’s note: D.G.R. & E.] X Army [Editor’s note: X Army is probably a mistake as the B.E.F. was broken down into 5 Armies (see Armies/Army Areas/Army Districts/I.W.G.C. Areas)] who only knew that these bodies were buried somewhere to the left of Gunner Villiers. The position of Gunner Villiers was also unknown though a memorial cross had been erected to him and three others viz. Watson, Watts and Barclay just S.E. of the original cemetery. In making the Extension the Remains of these latter three were discovered and further search enabled not only Villiers, but Southam, Thompson and Stephens as well as Crance of whom there was no record to be traced.’

Another entry in the Hooge Crater burial return makes clear the often crucial role of documentary evidence in identifying burials when it is explicitly stated that Brigadier General James Foster Riddell of 50^th Northumberland Division was ‘…Identified by Research Documents’ see the following Concentration document (his name was originally incorrectly spelt Reddell): http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/464425/RIDDELL,%20JAMES%20FOSTER

Efx number/file series:

A file series used to identify individual effect forms and associated effects files. References to this series are rarely seen after 1939. Some surviving correspondence from these enquiry files can be found in surviving Great War related Enquiry files (see Prefix series Enquiry Files). The following link is to the only original and completed Effects form currently known to survive and comes from the file of an Australian serviceman, Private W.H. Caldwell (go to page 23): https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=3188728

The above example shows how these forms got their EF/x number, it was stamped onto the form. There may also be a link between the 6/348 files (see 6/348) linked to exhumations and the 6348 printing references printed on the bottom of the forms. References to Efx files are frequently found in Concentration and Graves Registration Report forms, for example see the following Concentration form: http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/34313/COLLCOTT,%20ERNEST%20HARRY

For a longer article looking at the single surviving completed Efx Effects form (part “B”) and a transcription made by Australian clerks of another part of the same Effects form (including a unique part “C’), plus how the Effects form was part of a set printed with the part “A” Concentration of Graves (Exhumation and Reburials) Burial Return (which often survives in the C.W.G.C. Casualty Archive for concentrated burials) click here.

In 1928 a memorandum was sent by Works Branch to deal with the reallocation of a soldier whose body had been found from the prospective memorial to the missing at Thiepval to Serre Road No 2 Cemetery. The memorandum refers to the Registrar writing a letter on an Ef/x file (see C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry file YP 1/190 11960 Private J.W. Wilders 1st Bn. Royal Lancashire Regiment: F.V. Branch Director of Works to Enquiries Branch (28/3/1928)). The same reference can be seen in the casualties entries in the C.W.G.C. Casualty Archive: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/610142/wilders,-joseph-william/

A 1932 identification of a grave after exhumation followed at Serre Road Cemetery (with a special memorial headstone moved from Peronne Road Cemetery) is also sanctioned by an Ef/x referenced letter signed by a member of the Registrar’s Branch (see C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry file  YP 1/290 Pte 4635 A. Gray: Ef/x/26954 Registrar’s Branch to Director of Works (2 September 1932)). The same number can also be seen in the casualty’s entries in the C.W.G.C. Casualty Archive: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/608774/gray,-archibald-william/

Enquiries Branch:

From its foundation in March 1915 the G.R.C. answered enquiries from both the public and the military about the burial and graves of Commonwealth service personnel in France and Belgium. It also supplied at no cost to relatives (paid for by a grant by the British Red Cross Society (B.R.C.S.), originally a grant of £50 per week to the G.R.C. and its successors that was also to help fund the care of war cemeteries see C.W.G.C. Archive Add 4/1/5 Box 2028 Graves Registration Commission: Secretary to B.R.C.S. Commissioner to Fabian Ware (23 November 1915)) photographs of war graves. By February 1916 the G.R.C. had become the D.G.R. & E. and from August 1916 the main office was based in London (C.W.G.C. Archive C.W.G.C. 1/1/1/34 DGRE 8 Removal of Directorate to London from GHQ, France: Fabian Ware to the Adjutant General (27 August 1916)). In the autumn of 1917 the Enquiry Branch appears to have been reorganised into sections to reflect the structure of the Army Record Offices (see AA, CCM, CDEW, HLG, SL, WW, YP Enquiry Department pre-WW2 Prefix File Case File series). A fragment of a blank list intended to be used to show the day by day correspondence dealt with by the different sections (AA. etc) can be found in a surviving C.W.G.C. Enquiry file (C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry file PH 24/11963 303088 PH 24/11963 303088 J. Adam 1/8^th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders: undated fragment, back used for note dated 20 October 1921). The growth in the volume of enquiries by the end of 1918 was enormous. By April 1916 D.G.R. & E. reported that around 5,000 enquiries from families had been answered and 2,500 photographs of graves sent to next-of-kin ( (C.W.G.C. Archive C.W.G.C.1/1/26 Narrative Letters & Reports: Fabian Ware to Adjutant General (4 May)). The D.G.R. & E. end of 1918 report stated that 223, 126 letters have been sent out to answer enquiries about the location of graves (C.W.G.C. Archive WG 1609 Record of Directorate 1918: The Work of the Directorate of Graves Registration And Enquiries 1918 (copy report attached to minute dated 16 December 1918). With regard to photographs of graves 57,438 applications for photographs had been received and 33,437 photographs sent out (Ibid). By December 1919 the Enquiries Branch had transferred from D.G.R. & E. to the I.W.G.C. becoming part of the Principal Assistant Secretary’s Department ((C.W.G.C. Archive Add 1/3/69 Box 2033 Correspondence with General MacDonogh, Removal of D.G.R. & E: Memorandum written by Arthur Browne Principal Assistant Secretary: p. 1 (30 November 1920)). By November 1920 around 500,000 Enquiry files had been opened and in November 1920 it was reported that Enquiries Branch dealt with 300 letters per day about individual graves, sent out 400 letters a day and had about 20 enquiries per day from people calling in at the I.W.G.C. offices (Ibid: p. 2).

G.B. List*:

*From German sources – For a discussion of these sources and other ways they are referred to in CWGC records see J.K. List *: &  S.S.P. 4995 Files: *

A so far unique example from the CWGC Casualty Archive, the following excerpts from a cancelled Graves Registration Report Form (G.R.R.F.) and Concentration return (see the CWGC Casualty Archive under Concentration here for the records of Gunner 114597 Henry Thomas R.G.A. who died on 4 April 1918 and is now buried at St. Souplet British Cemetery) show how references to GB-Lists can potentially be found hiding under 4995 and J.K. List references. In this example the Imperial War Graves Commission clerk has replaced the S.S.P. acronym with a G.B. List reference but retained the 4995 SSP number, therefore referring to a German burial list filed on an SSP 4995 file (the significance of S.S.P. 4995 files in relation to these lists can be found by clicking on the link above):

This G.R.R.F. was cancelled when casualties from St Martin’s Military Cemetery Extension at St Quentin were concentrated to St Souplet British Cemetery. The reference to GB List/4995/211 6 in connection with Gunner Thomas is clear.

The Concentration return does not mention the SSP 4995 file reference but it does mention the GB List (and possibly Khaki!) as there are the letters ‘do.’ (a contraction of ditto: meaning the same) next to Thomas’s name in the ‘Means of Identification’ column.

G.R.C. Graves Registration Commission:

Formed by Fabian Ware and the British Red Cross Society from the original Mobile Unit in March 1915 (C.W.G.C. Archive GRC 2 Box 2029 Appointment of Graves Registration Commission: Fabian Ware memorandum (3 March 1915)) to concentrate on the process of finding and registering service graves in France and Belgium. The G.R.C. became the sole authority for registering graves for the Commonwealth forces in France and Belgium. In October 1915 the G.R.C. became part of the British Army (C.W.G.C. Archive Add 4/1/3 Box 2028, Mr Fabian Ware’s Unit transferred to the Army as the Grave Registration Commission: Fabian Ware to Sir Arthur Lawley BRCS Commissioner (24 October 1915)).

G.R. & E Files:

A file series mentioned in surviving Enquiry files, it was originally associated with the D.G.R. & E. (see D.G.R. & E.)

Graves Registration Reports (G.R.R.s)/Communal Reports/Comprehensive Reports:

These reports had their beginnings in a geographically arranged register of graves described in a Graves Registration Commission report to the Adjutant General from the 21^st August 1915 (C.W.G.C. Archive GRC 1 no 26 Box 2029 Narrative Letters and Reports), which stated that the register could be used in several different ways. It would allow the identification of the place and number of burials, the quick replacement of crosses lost to artillery fire and the replacement of crosses where land was lost to the enemy. Sadly the latter hope proved difficult to fulfil when the German Spring Offensive of 1918 saw many marked graves badly damaged or destroyed.

A very early idea of how this information was organised at the birth of the Commission in 1915 can be seen in a sketch of how the early register would operate. It gives  prominence to location, owner of land on which burial had taken place (presumably if available/behind the front lines), whether there was a sketch or plan of the burial site and did not provide a place for map references (C.W.G.C. Archive C.W.G.C./1/1/1/29 GRC 4, Box 2029 Organisational Tables). However Map references soon became a crucial part of the Communal Reports. The register as outlined in the sketch began the system of registering graves and organising them geographically by Commune (see Map References/Sketches for the adoption of map references for recording burials by the G.R.C. from May 1915).

Understanding the development from 1915 onwards of the Graves Registration Reports is important in understanding the WW1 and Interwar period records of the C.W.G.C. A section devoted to this topic can be found by clicking here.

G.R.W.P.:

Graves Registration Working Parties – Working parties attached to D.G.R. & E. from the Labour Corps from 1917 to June 1919. For more on their role and examples mentioning G.R.W.P. in the C.W.G.C. Casualty Archive and an Enquiry file click here.

Honours:

Before Final Verification the G.R.C./D.G.R. & E. and later the Imperial War Graves Commission were sometimes informed that a casualty had been awarded an honour such as a D.S.O. (Distinguished Service Order). For example correspondence in the file of Lieutenant Colonel F.A.W. Armitage notes his D.S.O. from the first letter in his Enquiry file (C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry file YP 5/2238 Lt. Col. F.A.W. Armitage 1st West Yorkshire Regiment attached 1/ Hampshire Regiment: letter from Stopford D.G.R. & E.  to Mrs Armitage informing her that the grave has been registered, stamped May 1918). Unusually his D.S.O. was also included next to his surname on his Enquiry Index Card. Graves Registration Units might also record an honour mentioned on an existing pre-G.R.U. cross placed on the grave, this is the case with Armitage and can be seen in the Graves Registration Report Form from 1920, see C.W.G.C. Casualty Archive https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/530401/armitage,-francis-arthur-william/#&gid=null&pid=2 In Armitage’s case there is also a photograph in the Enquiry file of the original cross placed on the grave with the reference to his D.S.O. on the right of the cross, following his surname. Information on honours may similarly have often come to the Commission through contacts with relatives or the casualty’s unit via the Enquiry Branch (see Enquiry Branch).

References to honours also appear in the case of the officers in the officers’ volumes of the Battalion Ledgers (see Battalion Ledgers), which unlike the Battalion Ledgers for the other ranks which are based on casualty lists and other pre-Soldiers Died In The Great War (S.D.G.W.) lists from the Army Record Offices, were taken directly from Officers Died In The Great War (O.D.G.W.). It is also possible that copies of the King’s List (see King’s List) may have included information about the honours awarded to a casualty. We know from notes on the Cavalry Officers’ Regimental Ledgers (also part of the Battalion Ledgers) that the War Office provided lists after the War to help verify officers’ details. There is also surviving correspondence (see above Final Verification: Officers) showing the I.W.G.C. using these lists for verification.

In the case of other ranks Army Record Offices would as part of the Final Verification process (see Final Verification) help verify the details of soldiers in known graves along with the next-of-kin. However in the case of soldiers who were commemorated on the Memorials to the Missing other than the Army Record Offices providing contact addresses for next-of-kin, verification was usually just agreed between the next-of-kin and the I.W.G.C. (for an explanation of why the I.W.G.C. was forced to agree to a lower standard of verification for the missing and exceptions see Final Verification). The details for the missing came in large part from Soldiers Died In The Great War (S.D.G.W) which unlike Officers Died In The Great War very rarely lists honours for other ranks. The Verification process helped correct and add missing details to the basic lists created from S.D.G.W. (see S.D.G.W. for the problems with S.D.G.W. and continued amendments from the War Office into the 1930s). Honours would be listed in the London Gazette, but even with a proper index (the printed index at the National Archives is from later) the work of cross-checking and identifying names would be a very big task. Alternatively Army and other Record Offices could have supplied the I.W.G.C. with rolls of the deceased who had received honours, or perhaps A.G. 10 Medals Branch and M.S.3  (which dealt amongst its many responsibilities with the award of honours) at the War Office were involved in this process (for example the ‘Honours and Awards Index’ of M.S.3 was one of the record sets lost in the Arnside Fire. See National Archives (TNA) WO 32/21769 Records Destroyed at Arnside Street: Records Destroyed At Arnside Street (list). p. 2). To date no evidence for either of these branches providing help to the I.W.G.C. in the form of lists of honours has been found (although there are as identified here Medals Branch letters in surviving C.W.G.C. Enquiry files).

We do however have some evidence that the Labour Corps Record Office supplied the I.W.G.C. with information on the honours attained (termed “Decorations”) alongside information on the original regiment/corps that they served in. Fragments of a form asking the Labour Corps Record office for details of soldiers who had served in other regiments survive.  I.W.G.C. wanted the information so that they could the next-of-kin of  Labour Corps casualties whether they wanted the casualty to be commemorated under the badge and details of the previous Regiment/Corps (for the fragments of the form see C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry Files SL 27/13357 Major R.G. Raper South Staff Regiment: back used for note to Major Stopford Enquiries Branch I.W.G.C. (23 February 1923) and YP 5/2065 2nd Lt. V.L. Patch 2/4th West Riding Regt: back used for note (26 February 1923)).

In the Imperial War Graves Commission Index to Cemetery And Memorial Registers of Those Who Fell In The Great War the Honours column can be clearly seen (there is also an Honours column in the related Imperial War Graves Commission Index To Cemetery And Memorial Registers Of Those Who Fell In The Great War, Forces Of The United Kingdom And The Colonies). Below is part of a page from a privately held copy of the Royal Navy portion of the Index featuring two entries in the ‘Honours’ column. Often there are also handwritten entries in this column where the punch card based technology could not deal with printing multiple honours or particular character combinations (click here for more information about the origin and production of the Indexes):

Imperial War Graves Commission Index to Cemetery And Memorial Registers of Those Who Fell In The Great War:

Click here for a detailed blog post on the Index and how punch card technology was used to produce this index which was of vital importance to the Commission over many decades.

Isolated Graves:

The G.R.C. and D.G.R. & E. during WW1 were faced by the problem of finding, registering and later concentrating so called Isolated Graves. That is individual or small number clusters of burials or newly discovered graves of the missing lost in Battle. The logistical and organisational problems of registering and maintaining such graves is obvious and the policy from 1915 was to try to identify and concentrate in a manageable number of cemeteries the burials of the dead. Typically such burials were a problem of death during military operations (with the bodies not recovered for burial in the Divisional or Corps cemeteries near the front) or of small groups of troops who died on the way to the front line, necessitating their burial in local communal cemeteries, where there were few or no other Commonwealth graves.  The Times 1928 War Graves of the Empire states that:

‘… many thousand..[had]…been buried where they fell – in the confusion of No Man’s Land; beneath the debris of villages and towns; in unsuspected fields, gardens and woods… (The Times (1929) War Graves of The Empire: Reprinted from the Special Number of the Times November 10, 1928. Times: London p. 4)’

From 1915 onwards the Army and C.W.G.C. worked to reduce the number of new Isolated Graves through firstly encouraging the provision of maintained burial grounds and setting up the system of Divisional Burial Officers and Corps Burial Officers by 1917 (see CWGC/1/1/34 DGRE 1 Narrative Letters and Reports. Fabian Ware D.G.R. & E. London H.Q. to Captain Cornock Taylor H.Q. D.G.R. & E. 2nd Echelon G.H.Q. France (29 June 1917)) to co-ordinate the work by the Army in concentrating the dead into a manageable number of cemeteries. However the conditions of warfare in WW1 continued to create Isolated Graves until the end of the War. The challenge posed by Isolated Graves to the work of the D.G.R.E and subsequently the I.W.G.C. after the end of the War is made clear by Fabian Ware’s statement to a meeting of the Imperial War Graves Commission on 19 November 1918:

‘…He said that there were in France and Belgium about 160,000 graves outside cemeteries. This number included single isolated graves and those in scattered groups of not more than 10. There were some 50,000 of these graves on the Somme battlefields, and a large number round about Ypres and Passchendaele. The peasants would soon be returning to their land and wanting to cultivate or afforest it, consequently the necessity of dealing with these scattered graves so as to prevent their being lost or damaged was urgent…’

From C.W.G.C. Archive CWGC/2/2/1/6 The Sixth Meeting of the Imperial War Graves Commission, 19 November 1918: pp. 2-3

A  list from September 1921 of some of the remaining Isolated Graves which the British Army had not exhumed before its departure from France and Belgium (identified by the Australian Army during their exhumation work) vividly illustrates the condition of many of these graves three years after the end of the War. These include a portion of a Graves Registration Cross with a named officer casualty, another cross with a name disk of a soldier from the Northumberland Fusiliers, one body left at the rear of a ruined house covered by a sheet and another covered over by canvas by a roadside and at least twelve British bodies near Cheddar Villa (Seaforth) Cemetery (C.W.G.C. Archive W.G. 1294/Pt1 Box 1082 Exhumation by I.W.G.C. General File: Alfred[?] Allen[? ] Inspector Australian Grave Services France & Belgium Letter to Deputy Director of Works I.W.G.C. St Omer (15 September 1921)).

I.W.G.C. (The Imperial War Graves Commission):

Originally established by Royal Charter in May 1917 as a civilian organisation to manage Great War related war graves once handed over by the Armed Forces, it was also responsible for the design, landscaping and permanent commemoration of all casualties, including building memorials to the missing.

In March 1921 I.W.G.C. absorbed the headquarters and records of the Army based graves organisation the D.G.R. & E. (see C.W.G.C. Archive Add 1/3/4 Box 2033 Taking over of D.G.R. & E. by I.W.G.C.: Conference held in A.G.’s room 23.12.1920), except for D.G.R. & E (Central Europe) which continued to work on establishing cemeteries in Germany and Central Europe for the Commonwealth P.O.W.s who had died in Germany custody or shortly after release from the camps (e.g. the Berlin Office of D.G.R. & E. was still in operation in 1922). Army exhumation units (three platoons) continued to work in France and Belgium but by June 1921 they were down to a working strength of only 254 men (C.W.G.C. Archive WG 1294/3/2 Box 1084 Exhumation. France & Belgium. Army Exhumation Staff. Col Dick-Cunyngham to Assistant Adjutant General D.G.R. & E. London (21 June 1921)). It appears from this memorandum and other correspondence on the same file that a military officer remained attached to work with I.W.G.C. as the liaision between them and the remaining military D.G.R. & E. units abroad. D.G.R. & E was finally withdrawn from France in September 1921 (Ibid. Col Dick-Cunyngham to D.G.R. & E. London (15 June 1921), the letter sets out in detail how the final withdrawal operation would take place and the exhumation related stores to be handed over to the I.W.G.C.).

An undated newspaper article (see C.W.G.C. Archive W.G. 436/1 Box 1037 Graves of British Prisoners of War in Germany) says that D.G.R. & E (Central Europe) closed down in April 1922, presumably having handed its remaining work and records to the I.W.G.C.

In March 1960 the Imperial War Graves Commission became the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

J.K. List:

See also G.B. List*: & S.S.P. 4995 Files: *

Information provided by the Germans post WW1 on burials of British/Commonwealth soldiers (often P.O.W.s) or graves lost to the Germans in the German spring offensive of 1918. Often associated with S.S.P 4995 report/file references (see S.S.P. 4995). The J.K. and other German lists were compiled by the Allies from German card indexes. For an example see the Concentration and G.R.R. forms here: http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/491988/POWELL,%20G

In an answer to a Parliamentary Question on ‘British Prisoners of War, List of Names’, a British Government Minister stated that:

‘…So far as is known, the Germans have no such lists. All their records regarding prisoners of war, are made on index-cards. It is understood that the number of these cards, owing to the lack of system whereby one name sometimes appears on several cards, runs to several hundred thousand. These cards are being examined, but this must necessarily be a slow proceeding….’

That the compilation of information of these cards into list was due to work by British War Office staff as part of the post-Armistice British Military Mission to Berlin is also made clear in the same debate:

‘…The staff available in Berlin for search of German records consists of an assistant adjutant-general and two other Staff officers [Editor’s note: presumably officers with a working knowledge of German], with a clerical staff…’

(National Archives (TNA) file FO 383/499: Extract from Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Thursday, 29^th May 1919: 355)

The Director of Records in 1928 stated that the Germans reported 38,691 burials via the Burial Lists with the figures including dead found by the Germans on the battlefield, those of Commonwealth soldiers graves in areas captured by the Germans, in addition to the P.O.W.s who died in German custody or shortly after the end of the War ( C.W.G.C. Archive WG 436/1 Box 1037 Archive Graves of British Prisoners of War – Germany: : Prisoners of War. Director of Records to Principal Assistant Secretary I.W.G.C. (22 June 1928)). The number and details taken from the card are the same as can be seen on the documents in the C.W.G.C. Casualty Archive: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/270005/pascoe,-/

The Commission also had access to the Geneva lists of P.O.W.s (including those said by the Germans to have died whilst prisoners) passed to the International Committee of the Red Cross by the German Government during the War and sent on to the British Government. A note in an Enquiry file mentions that the I.W.G.C. knew through a P.M. (Geneva List) about the death of a British private (C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry file C.C.M. 25/12739, Lt-Col. R.H.N. Settle 19th Hussars and 21 Btn. M.G.C.: C.L. Miskin Registrar to Deputy Controller (Assistant Director of Records), I.W.G.C., France (14 November 1922)). Hembury’s entries in the C.W.G.C. Casualty Archive (including references to an S.S.P. 4995 list) can be found here: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/572279/hembury,-james-william/

The Director of Records in 1928 stated that the Germans reported 38,691 burials via the Burial Lists with the figures including dead found by the Germans on the battlefield, those of Commonwealth soldiers graves in areas captured by the Germans, in addition to the P.O.W.s who died in German custody or shortly after the end of the War ( Ibid: Prisoners of War. Director of Records to Principal Assistant Secretary I.W.G.C. (22 June 1928)).

Imperial War Museum Blank Copies of an R.F.1. Return of Graves traced from German War Office Records Donated by I.W.G.C. in 1932

Blank copies of a number of forms, including a transcription of a R.F.1 form were given to the Imperial War Museum by Henry Chettle the Director of Records at the I.W.G.C. in 1932. The following soldier’s burial by the Germans was reported on R.F.1. List 57 Schedule 7 (C.W.G.C. Archive WG 436/1 Box 1037 Archive Graves of British Prisoners of War – Germany: Missing Prisoners of War; Germany. Director of Records I.W.G.C. to A.D.G.R. & E. Central Europe (14 February 1922)) and his documents (not including the R.F.1. which have not survived) can be found here: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/550885/griffiths,-/

The reference to the collection of forms of which they form part can be found here:

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1500032047

The King’s List:

The War Office branch M.S.3 (Casualties) supplied D.G.R. & E Headquarters in London with at list of deceased officers and the addresses of their next-of-kin who had received a standardised message of condolence from the King. The equivalent message for other ranks was sent through Army Record Offices and not compiled in a list available to D.G.R. & E. References to the King’s List feature in some of the surviving WW1 Enquiry files, often referring to a Mrs Lomax at D.G.R. & E. London H.Q. searching the list (for example see note dated 18/6/1917 in C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry file SL 22/10960 Captain F.H.M Lewes Sherwood Forresters).

 ‘Kipling’ Special Memorials:

Featuring a passage chosen from the Bible by the writer and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) to represent graves that can no longer be identified within a particular cemetery because they were lost to shellfire. The inscription such as that seen below for Bernafay Wood was recorded on a special stone (each individual represented is also given a headstone in addition to the stone). The Kipling Memorial for Bernafay Wood, which mentions 20 lost soldiers on the special stone (subsequently reduced in number, as seven bodies were subsequently located and buried at the London Cemetery Extension, Longueval), with the following inscription, is representative of this type of memorial:

‘TO THE MEMORY OF

THESE TWENTY

BRITISH SOLDIERS

KILLED IN ACTION IN 1916

AND BURIED AT THE TIME

IN BERNAFAY WOOD

NORTH CEMETERY, IN MONTAUBAN

WHOSE GRAVES WERE DESTROYED IN LATER BATTLES

IN LATER BATTLES

“THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT

BE BLOTTED OUT.”

From C.W.G.C. Casualty Archive Private 7700 S. Piper R.A.M.C.  1923 G.R.R.F.: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/246052/piper,-/

LS (Location sheet references):

e.g. CDEW/LS7/3099 etc. The location sheet series are (in number order): PH/LS1, YP/LS2, HLG/LS3, WW/LS4, AA/LS5, SL/LS6, CDEW/LS7, CCM/LS8. They were not files but rather sheets issued by the G.R.C./D.G.R. & E./I.W.G.C. Location Sheets were sent out firstly to the War Office casualty department ‘C2 Casualties’ who verified the details if they were not an officer (the majority of the Army). C2 also produced the official casualty lists and worked with the Army record offices on informing next of kin about the death, imprisonment or sickness of servicemen and women.  For regular officers D.G.R. & E. dealt with M.S.3. for regular officers and M.S.3.(T) for Territorial officers. For Commonwealth soldiers liaison was originally with the responsible Record Office in London, for example the record office for the Australian Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.) was based in Horseferry Road. Before discussing the next stage of dealing with location sheets it is useful to briefly discuss the ‘slip’ system that preceded them.

Please note this transcription is based on an image from the National Archives

Transcribed from http://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=gbm%2fwo363-4%2f007330944%2f00535&parentid=gbm%2fwo363-4%2fsupp%2f290297&highlights=%22%22

Before the move of the Headquarters of D.G.R. & E. (see D.G.R. & E.) to London in 1916 the work of checking the details via slips sent to them from G.R.C. (see G.R.C.) and from February 1916 D.G.R. & E. was made through 3^rd Echelon, the British Expeditionary Forces personnel office located for most of the war at Rouen. In May 1915 it was noted that the first 1,000 slips (the ancestors/predecessors to Location Sheets) had been sent to 3^rd Echelon, sorted into regiment, this would allow the various parts of 3^rd Echelon to check and amend the details for soldiers from the regiments they were responsible and notify the relevant Army record office back in the United Kingdom (C.W.G.C. Archive C.W.G.C.1/1/26 Narrative Letters & Reports: Fabian Ware to Cecil (19 May 1915). In an August 1915 report to the Adjutant General it is mentioned that new burial details were sent for checking to 3^rd Echelon on a weekly basis (Ibid: Fabian Ware Report for the Adjutant General (21 August 1915): p. 2). In Fabian Ware’s report from March 1916 he noted a massive rise in correspondence with 3^rd Echelon, with enquiries rising from 800 in his previous report (the date of the last report is not given, but probably from the end of 1915, beginning 1916) to 2,250 in the period covered by his report. Most of this correspondence was probably to do with individual cases which required more than the simple confirmation on slips, but that slips continued to be sent in large volume is confirmed by Ware’s statement that many thousands of corrections were to do with either names or regimental numbers (Ibid: Fabian Ware Report for the Adjutant General (2 March 1916): p. 3). It is likely that the need to get information to correctly identify graves and notify next of kin, which helped increase 3^rd Echelon’s workload, it may be an unstated contributory reason for D.G.R. & E’s H.Q.s move to London and the fact that in 1916 the ‘slips’ were replaced by Location Sheets, allowing the information to be obtained from U.K. based record offices rather than 3^rd Echelon.

Location Sheets were after D.G.R. & E. H.Q.s move to London sent on to the Army record offices based in the U.K. (hence the need for the record office prefixes) to report the location of a burial. The record offices would send on the details to the next of kin. The record offices would also be able to report back any further amendments to the casualty’s details back to D.G.R. & E. or the I.W.G.C. Checks made against the verified Location Sheets which led to changes in the G.R.R.F. Comprehensive Reports are noted by the LS reference being written in line with the entry that has been changed or updated. Location sheets often included casualties from more than one location and from different battalions within the same regiment. A good example of location sheets issued in succession to each other for casualties from the same Australian Army unit can be seen here, it is very common to see multiple or sequential references to location sheets, either the same number in succession or numbers following each other e.g. AA/LS/11522, AA/LS/11523 etc. See the Graves Registration Report GRRS (Working Copy) form here for 2761 William Conway http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/588678/CONWAY,%20WILLIAM and the copy of the location sheet entered next to his details, AA/LS/11522, here on the service file (go to page 16): https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=3281441

2623 Jacobsen and 2357 Gleeson whose details appear on the same location sheet, AA/LS/11522, entries can be found here on a GRRS (Working Copy) of the Cemetery Report, commemorated on a special memorial in the same cemetery: http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/589055/JACOBSEN,%20VICTOR%20JACOB

Location Sheets were also sent out to Army record offices to check personal details before effects recovered from exhumations were passed on to the same offices for distribution to next of kin by the Effects Branch of the B.E.F, or the relevant expeditionary force. Effects Branch was originally part of the 3^rd Echelon in France. 3^rd Echelon was a theatre of war based personnel administration organisation for each of the British expeditionary forces, for example 3^rd Echelon for the B.E.F. in France and Belgium was based for much of the War in Rouen. From 1921 I.W.G.C. absorbed the Effects section of the D.G.R. & E. dealing with effects of exhumed casualties from the beginning of WW1 to the official end of the War in all theatres for I.W.G.C. and subsequently C.W.G.C. (31^st August 1921). A copy of a surviving Location Sheet (the format did not vary from the first location sheets issued in 1916) issued by I.W.G.C. following an exhumation in 1924 (for the Graves Registration Report (Finals) see http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/39608/SHANHUN,%20ALFRED) can be found here (go to page 22): https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8077928

Examples of copies of location sheets from surviving British Army service files (paid access website) can be found here (Trooper 2857 Richard Smith 2^nd Life Guards): http://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=gbm%2fwo400%2f151%2f2857%2f0011&parentid=gbm%2fwo400%2f151%2f005963

Richard Smith died on 20^th September 1914 and the location sheet contained in the service file is another example of a location sheet issued after exhumation/or research at H.Q. in London (exhumation reports for this casualty do not survive, however there is an R.U. reference on the Graves Registration Report, see R.U. series) had allowed the positive identification of his grave. It also was issued a year after I.W.G.C. had fully taken over responsibility for Great War related war graves from the Army (see D.G.R. & E.). Smith’s C.W.G.C. entry can be seen here: http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/258424/SMITH,%20R

Claude Lloyd Smith (M/2/120851 C.L. Smith A.S.C.) died on 9^th December 1915, and the slip/location sheet preserved in his service file is one of the earliest surviving location sheets, issued in 1916. His C.W.G.C. entry can be found here:

http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/117792/SMITH,%20CLAUDE%20LLOYD

And his location sheet here:

http://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=gbm%2fwo363-4%2f007329046%2f00285&parentid=gbm%2fwo363-4%2f7329046%2f9%2f269

Lloyd’s Smith’s location sheet is clearly a missing link between the location sheet and the earliest slips used by the G.R.C. in 1915.

The last example (link below) has entries for more than one soldier (which is typical of a majority of location sheets) and can be found as a fragment of the service file of 15273 Percy Long of the 11 Warwickshire Regiment who died on the 15-7-16 (there are also references to Capt. Thomas list, SSP and communal reports, for the relevance of these references see Glossary entries):

http://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=gbm%2fwo363-4%2f007330944%2f00535&parentid=gbm%2fwo363-4%2fsupp%2f290297&highlights=%22%22

Long’s C.W.G.C entry can be seen here: http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/589171/LONG,%20PERCY

A fragment of a Location sheet probably from early 1919 for the Italian Theatre has been found in a surviving Enquiry File (C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry File AA 9/4438,  2916 Private N.D. Wilkinson, 33rd Battalion A.I.F.: fragment on back of handwritten note dated 6 March 1919).

From 1922 in response to the final demise of the big War Office branch responsible for collating information on casualties C2 Casualties it was agreed in response to War Office demands that Location Sheets accompanying effects would in future not be verified by the War Office or Army Record Offices (although it is clear that some Record Offices continued to submit corrections) but would just accompany effects to the Record Offices so that the Record Office could pass on the information to next-of-kin (C.W.G.C. Archive WG 219/4 Box 1015 Memorials to the Missing: Nominal Rolls & Battalion Ledgers: Lists of: Location Sheets. Stopford Enquiries Branch to Director of Records (27 April 1922)). The use of Location Sheets to accompany effects to British Army Record Offices was ended by February 1923, but continued for the Navy and the Dominions (Ibid: Location Sheets. Stopford Enquiries Branch to Director of Records (19 February 1923)).

Map References/Sketches:

Initially the Graves Registration Commission planned to register reports of grave locations only by place name, landowner (presumably if the burial was behind the front line) description and sketch/plan, not by Map Reference, as can be seen from the first system of G.R.C. Registers set out in 1915 (see C.W.G.C. Archive C.W.G.C./1/1/1/29 GRC 4, Box 2029 Organisational Tables).

However the first surviving copy of a Report Form (later known as a Graves Registration Report Form) printed around May 1915 does include space for map references, see here. A special geographical register of isolated graves (see Isolated Graves) was kept by the Graves Registration Commission (G.R.C.) on the basis of  1:40,000 maps and in operation by Summer 1915 (see C.W.G.C. Archive C.W.G.C./1/1/1/26 GRC1 Narrative Letters & Reports. Report of the Work of the G.R.C. Fabian Ware to the Adjutant General G.H.Q (21 August 1915): p. 4).

More detailed 1:20,000 maps of Belgium and France were gradually extended throughout the Western Front and the back area where the Commonwealth forces were based. On C.W.G.C. documents it is the 1:20,000 map reference, for the burial or cemetery which tends to dominate (although other scales can be used), for example see here for a reference in the Graves Registration Report for St. Souplet British Cemetery Sheet 57B. Q. 33 c.50. 15. , the last two figures were changed between reports (reference 48629  G.A. Bowen): http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/320559/BOWEN,%20G%20A  ). For a good guide on how to understand these references and relate them to the British Expeditionary Force grid reference system see: http://maps.nls.uk/ww1/trenches/info2.html

1:20,000 map references superseded the use of 1:40,000 references by the G.R.C. and its successors, with the preferred hierarchy of map references to be included in reports made clear in the D.G.R. & E. Standing Orders of 1918:

‘All reports…should contain a reference to the 1/20,000 map, or other larger scale map if available. If no 1/20,000 or larger scale map exists, the 1/40,000 or 1/100,000 may be quoted….’

From Commonwealth War Graves Commission CWGC/1/1/1/38/3  Add 3/1/3 Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries – Standing Orders. Revised to 1^st May 1918, p. 4

The logic of adopting map references as a key part of identifying the location of a grave, is given in the explanation of why G.R.C.’s Bethune section (probably in 1915, it is likely that the writer was then Captain C.H.L. (Clement Haughton Langston) Cazalet) adopted map references as a standard piece of information for burial reports (C.W.G..C./1/1/1/29 GRC4 War Establishments Etc. C.R.C. Bethune Section: between March 1915-February 1916 – likely second half 1915 or early 1916: p. 2). A map reference would be more convenient than a description to the officer reporting the burial and it would also mean that G.R.C. (and its successors) would have geographical records of the names and numbers of those reported buried at a particular grid reference (even if the grave had subsequently been lost). Records such as the Weekly Reports and the so-called Body Density Maps showing the number of reported WW1 burials per square depend on map references.

The production of a range of reports which included map references was a development of the greatest importance in allowing the production of a range of burial reports based on this information and helping the subsequent work of the G.R.C./D.G.R. & E. and I.W.G.C. in identifying isolated graves and attempting to identify remains which came to light before WW2. Descriptions (if they had been reported) of the place of burial (as long as some of the recorded landmarks remained) could be important in narrowing down the location of a grave within a map square. The map square gave a clear area to investigate even if the landmarks were gone but the map references were subject to human error. In a surviving C.W.G.C. Enquiry file there is a reference to a map co-ordinate based card index in use in 1924. The reference mentions not finding a concentration cemetery for a particular reference ’59d F19. b 9.2.’ and then where the nearest concentration cemetery is with unidentified British soldiers (C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry file SL 22/10960 Captain F.H.M Lewes Sherwood Forresters: Capt. F.H.M. Lewes 1/5 Notts & Derby: Note to Registrar I.W.G.C. (23 September 1924)). Lewes’s body was never found and he is commemorated at Thiepval: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/800361/lewes,-frederick-henry-meredith/

Correspondence on the C.W.G.C. Enquiry files often makes it very clear to next-of-kin that the destruction of the front by artillery fire throughout the War and wrought by the advances of 1918 meant that many crosses, landmarks and the ground itself was refashioned into an environment which made looking for lost graves extremely difficult (for example see C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry file PH 24/11963 303088 J. Adam 1/8^th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders:  Enquiries to Mr J. Adam (29 June 1922)) even where a map reference had been recorded.

The D.G.R. & E. and the I.W.G.C. had access to a range of trench and other maps following the end of the War for their investigative work. A note in an Enquiry file sets out that whilst they had maps of part of the front for 1917 and August 1918 they did not have a map required for March 1918 for the Maissemy area of France that would have shown the trench line they were looking for (Ibid: note to Mr Davidson I.W.G.C. dated 3 February 1922).

Memorials to the Missing Branch:

Memorials to the Missing Branch (M.M. Branch) was responsible for producing lists of missing casualties that could be divided by battalion/regiments and corps and placed in chronological order. Lists were also produced for each of the memorials (e.g. Thiepval, Menin Gate etc.) based upon the nations to be included, geographical areas and chronological periods to be covered by the relevant memorial (See C.W.G.C. Archive SDC 65 Establishments And Duties. 1920 – 1922: Imperial War Graves Commission London, draft directory:  p. 4). The work involved the use of War Diaries and other information to ascertain where particular units where, at particular times so that the missing were noted on the right memorial. When it was still to be decided when the dividing line would be between the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot Memorials to the Missing, the Printing Advisor Dougals Cockerell asked that the Memorial to the Missing Cards be left divided by battalions in date of death order, battalions (linked to Divisions) being the basic unit for the infantry used to trace where the unit of the casualty was at any particular time using information from the War Diaries. Left in this order it would be relatively straightforward to divide the names up according to when the dividing line between the two memorials was agreed (see C.W.G.C. Archive W.G. 219/4 Box 1015 Memorials to the Missing: Memorial Forms for the Salient. Printing Adviser to Captain Murphy Final Verification Branch (20 May 1924)).

They also prepared printed lists of the missing to check the details of the missing with Record Offices (see C.W.G.C. Archive W.G. 219/4/2 Memorials to Missing: Obtaining Correct Lists Box 1015. Preparing lists of Missing: Alteration of Procedure: Printing Advisor and Director of Records to M.M Branch (10 August 1923)). The lists were in common with the Imperial War Graves Commission Index to Cemetery and Memorial Registers of Those Who Fell In The Great War (I.W.G.C. Index) produced using punched cards and printed out with a tabulator. Detailed discussion of fragments of regimental and corps lists printed out using this system can be found here in a blog post on the I.W.G.C. Index.

The information in the lists primarily came from Soldiers Died in the Great War (see S.D.G.W.) compared against information collected since 1914 by the G.R.C./D.G.R. & E./I.W.G.C. and in some cases the Battalion Ledgers. The information in the Missing List went through a Final Verification process with relatives as well as Record Offices. References to Memorials to the Missing Branch files (which do not survive) in letters in the surviving C.W.G.C. files use the prefix M.M.R, for example M.M.R. 9591 in a Memorial to the Missing Branch letter sent to the Director of Records referring to a matter of inserting a missing name on the panels being prepared for the Menin Gate in 1925 (C.W.G.C. Archive W.G. 219/4/42 Box 1015 Memorials to the Missing Obtaining Correct Lists Box 1015 (Letter 1 October 1925)).

Before work on the Memorials had begun the Imperial War Graves Commission was always anxious to tell the next of kin that their loved one would be given a memorial that would be of equal esteem to those men with known graves, as for example in a 15 July 1920 letter from a surviving Enquiry File (C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry file CDEW 34/16968 12488 L/Cpl P. Smith 6^th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment) which featured standard wording telling relatives that all missing officers and men would be commemorated in this way.

Before the completion of memorials the Memorials to the Missing Branch was able to use information gathered from War Diaries to locate the place where a unit was operating at the time of the missing casualties death, for example a search slip from the C.W.G.C Enquiry Branch file YP 2/860  concerning Lance Corporal 2221 A. Birbeck 1/8^th Durham Light Infantry dated 15 March 1928 places his name as going to be on the new memorial at Thiepval and his battalion at the time of his death as being in the area of the Butte de Warlencourt.

A great deal of the effort had to be put during the verification process into dealing with the inaccuracies of Soldiers Died In The Great War (S.D.G.W.) and Army record keeping, particularly of dates of death for those missing presumed lost (M.P.D.) and those attached to other regiments/units. The following examples show some of the problems faced which made it difficult for the Branch to avoid revisions to the placing of casualties on the relevant memorials throughout the process.

In regard to casualties from the Suffolk Regiment 28 cases of missing soldiers reported in the relevant S.D.G.W. as having missing presumed dead dates of 8 or 9 April 1915 were actually found after the return of 5 Missing Register forms to have gone missing on 26 August 1914, showing that when the Record Office compiled this particular volume the clerks had substituted the acceptance date for the soldiers being missing presumed dead as the date they had gone missing ((C.W.G.C. Archive W.G. 219/4/42 Box 1015 Memorials to the Missing Obtaining Correct Lists: Memorials to the “Missing”  Mr Dennis Memorials to the Missing Branch to Director of Records & Joint Director of Records (14 August 1925)). This meant that the soldiers concerned names would be placed on the Ferte-sous-Jouarre memorial and not the Menin Gate. Other entries with the same status had been correctly dated, showing that the errors were often simple errors in checking. Another 12 names from the same Regiment from the Menin Gate to other memorials after different death dates were given by next-of-kin on the Memorial Register forms (Ibid), making very clear the problems faced in using S.D.G.W. when putting together the memorial lists. Final Verification of the Memorial Register details was vital in picking up errors missed by the Record Offices both when putting together S.D.G.W. and when verifying the lists sent to them by the I.W.G.C. in the 1920s.

The same letter also bring up the problems of the failure by Record Offices to list attachments on the lists they were asked to verify, making it easy for errors to occur if the casualty was attached to another unit (Ibid) as the unit the casualty was attached may have been in a different area to their original unit at the time they went missing. A good example of this sort of error that was picked up by the next-of-kin at Final Verification was the fact that the father’s son had been an Officer in the Gordon Highlanders attached to the Northumberland Fusiliers. In Officers Died In The Great War (O.D.G.W.) the casualty was listed twice, once under each different regiment. 2nd Lieutenant W. Diack is listed in the C.W.G.C. register see: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/1629894/diack,-william/ . However criticism of this error was enough for the clerks of M.M. Branch to condemn the War Office for an official policy of not undertaking proper verification of the details from O.D.G.W. and S.D.G.W. ((see C.W.G.C. Archive Box 1011 WG 219/2/1/1 Memorials To Missing Menin Gate & Tyne Cot Lists: Dennis M.M. Branch to Director of Records (18 December 1925)).

There were also problems to do with the way that information for some corps was put together, with for example the particular units of officers in the Royal Engineers and Royal Artillery often omitted from Officers Died in the Great War (O.D.G.W.)(Ibid: Memorial Register Forms: Royal Engineers. Director of Records to Joint Director of Records (Douglas Cockerell) (1926?)). Cockerell in a subsequent letter to the Director of Records made clear the scale of the overall problem when it came to identifying officer’s units from O.D.G.W., with many not listing entries not listing attachments to other units or missing battalion details making it hard to locate the unit they were serving with at the time they went missing. A July 1922 memorandum sets out a number of volumes of S.D.G.W. where there are no unit details, ranging from the Royal Artillery to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, with Corps apart from the Scots Guards the common denominator where vital unit detail was left out (Ibid: Memorials to the “Missing” – France and Belgium. Fisher M.M. Branch to Director of Records (5 July 1922)). The solution to this was to send out nominal rolls of missing soldiers to the affected corps to fill in the unit details and this was agreed by the War Office despite reductions in staff in Record Offices (Ibid: Extract from No. 18 Circular of Decisions etc of 1922, addressed to all Officers i/c Records: Unregistered Graves of Soldiers. Follows letter dated 13 July 1922, Director of Records to Lieut-Colonel J.H.T. Cornish-Bowden). This meant that the work saved by the various Army Corps Record Offices in not identifying individual units when they were putting together their respective lists for S.D.G.W. had only been postponed.

In a test sample of forms Cockerell found that 11 out of 30 had no battalion or other unit information (attachment etc.) shown in O.D.G.W (Ibid: Douglas Cockerell to Director of Records (5 March 1926)).

Problems were also noted in relating the relevant Battalion Ledgers and Soldiers Died In The Great War volumes to the Royal Fusiliers and London Regiment battalions, with many Royal Fusiliers recorded as casualties under the London Regiment and vice-versa as a result of attachments to Royal Fusilier or London Regiment battalions (WG 219/4 Memorials to the Missing: Nominal Rolls & Battalion Ledgers: Lists of: Royal Fusiliers and London Regiment. Fisher Memorials to the Missing to Director of Records (27 March 1922)). The Battalion Ledgers might also be used more generally by M.M. Branch as a supplement to the S.D.G.W. information, for example with 66 extra names added to the list for the Menin Gate of the 10th Battalion Royal West Surrey Regiment, this meant that the final list would need to be rearranged quickly to allow work to proceed on the memorial, however the names had not been verified, therefore there was a danger that Final Verification might cause changes to recorded rank. This could lead to  changes to the order of the list (divided by rank, then alphabetical) so the Director of Records told M.M. Branch to check the ranks for the 66 to pick up as many errors of ranks as possible to reduce the later work in rejigging the lists if relatives informed them of a change to the casualty’s rank (see C.W.G.C. Archive Box 1011 WG 219/2/1/1 Memorials To Missing Menin Gate & Tyne Cot Lists: Menin Gate Memorial. Director of Records to Director of Works (30 July 1925)).

As with other aspects of the Commission’s work, when it came to compiling lists for the Memorials to the Missing the I.W.G.C. were also prepared to send out clerks into the Record Offices if necessary to finalise names to put on the lists for the Menin Gate/Tyne Cot Memorials, as demonstrated by them sending out two clerks to the Royal Artillery Record Office at Woolwich to work through the service records of 1,500 casualties (C.W.G.C. Archive Box 1011 WG 219/2/1/1 Memorials To Missing Menin Gate & Tyne Cot Lists. Notes on Conference between Director of Works and Director of Records 19.11.24 (19 November 1924)).

Letters in reply to those still hopeful of finding their missing next-of-kin (written by Enquiries Branch, it seems likely that M.M. Branch had been absorbed back into Records by the 1930s) were by the 1930s decidedly pessimistic about the chances of further casualties being found and identified despite the continuing steady flow of newly discovered remains in the 1930s (for example see the letter dated  3 December 1934 in C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry  file YP 1/441 33995 J.W. Rogers 8^th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment). Apart from the fact that the 38,000 bodies found by the I.W.G.C. inbetween 1921-1937 represents a small fraction of the lost commemorated on the memorials to the missing, this pessimism was reinforced by a declining chance due to decay (e.g. of identification tags, effects etc.) of identifying those bodies found, with a decline from an estimated 20% of bodies identified in the 1920s by the I.W.G.C. to 10-15% by 1937 (adapted from Fabian Ware (1937) The Immortal Heritage, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge: p. 37).

Mobile Unit:

The Red Cross unit run by Fabian Ware in France and Belgium that along with another British Red Cross Society (B.R.C.S.) mobile unit became from October 1914 increasingly involved in the role of registering graves (see C.W.G.C. Archive GRC 2 Box 2029 Appointment of Graves Registration Commission: C.H. Langston-Cazalet Mobile Unit to Lt. Col. Stewart B.R.C.S. (8 March 1915) for a brief history of how the unit began the work of grave registration alongside its ambulance duties with the French Army) . In March 1915 it became officially the only approved British Army graves registration unit on the Western Front and was renamed the Graves Registration Commission (see G.R.C.).

Principal Assistant Secretary’s Department:

Enquiries (see Enquiries Branch) was part of this Department which also had branches responsible for dealing with general administrative issues (that fell outside Works responsibility) and crucially external relations with Government/Government Departments and other interested groups such the Church Army or British Legion (see C.W.G.C. Archive SDC 65 Establishments And Duties. 1920 – 1922: Imperial War Graves Commission London, draft directory:  pp. 2-3). The Department also dealt with the public relations aspects of the Commission’s work. Letters from the Principal Assistant Secretary (P.A.S.) Lord Arthur Browne or more often sent out in his name for more difficult/sensitive cases appear in surviving C.W.G.C. Enquiries files from the 1920s, for example in the case of confusion over a lost temporary wooden cross (see C.W.G.C. Archive Enquiry file WW 49/22344 Captain L.C. Nash K.R.R.C., signed Stopford for Principal Assistant Secretary to Mrs Nash (11 April 1923 )) . A blank copy of a form intended to show the daily number of W.G. series, Enquiry and other files dealt with by the the Principal Assistant Secretary (or possibly where actions needed to be agreed by the P.A.S.) can be found in C.W.G.C. Archive WG 1294/3/2 Box 1084 Exhumation: France & Belgium: Army Exhumation Staff (undated follows a letter to the P.A.S. from the Secretary of the Anglo-Belgian Mixed Cemetery Committee dated 21 August 1922).

Records Officers:

The French and Belgium I.W.G.C. H.Q. office had its own Records Department (other I.W.G.C. areas also had Record Officers) responsible in the 1920s for grave registration and exhumation for the London H.Q. of I.W.G.C. They in effect took over the work of the Army in this role from September 1921, although with fewer resources (See C.W.G.C. Archive SDC 65 Establishments And Duties. 1920 – 1922: Imperial War Graves Commission London, draft directory:  p. 12). An explanation of the more technically restricted mandate they worked under compared to their recent Army predecessors can be seen under Weekly Reports.  Also under Weekly Reports there is a summary of a rare surviving Weekly Report made by the Assistant Records Officer for the Aisne and Marne Area that shows the amount of active work, travel and supervision/completion of reports on the exhumation of bodies found that this role entailed in the early 1920s.

The scale of the exhumation and reburial work undertaken by the I.W.G.C. which involved work by French and other Record Officers based in the various I.W.G.C. offices outside the U.K. from 1921 onwards is clear from Fabian Ware’s report/book to celebrate the 1937 twentieth anniversary of the founding of the I.W.G.C., The Immortal Heritage. Ware stated the 38,000 bodies had been found by locals and those searching for scrap metal since Army had ceased its work in September 1921. Ware attributes a success rate of about 20% identification of these previously unknown remains by the I.W.G.C, without mentioning the work of the Assistant Record Officers in France and Belgium (plus other countries) or the supporting work of the Records Department back in London. That this work was becoming less successful with decay of identification disks and other surviving personal effects is made clear with a statement that the success rate is now down to between 10 to 15% of bodies identified (adapted from Fabian Ware (1937) The Immortal Heritage, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge: p. 37).

A good example of the thoroughness that many Assistant Record Officers brought to their supervision of exhumation work can be seen here in two examples from Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery, used after the war as a concentration cemetery.

See Concentration documents under https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/584587/young,-george-minchin/

See Concentration documents under

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/585395/curtis,-/

Registers (published) – War Graves of the British Empire and Memorial Registers:

See also Cemetery Registers:
Click here for a page about what the way the Registers were compiled and published tells us about the Commission and its priorities in the 1920/1930s, plus an explanation of how and why the numbering system for the published registers differs from the Imperial War Graves Commission Index to Cemetery And Memorial Registers of Those Who Fell In The Great War.

Registrar (Part of Records Department in the I.W.G.C.):

The office of Registrar began in 1915 under the G.R.C. The Registrar’s job was to keep records of all the graves and burials that the G.R.C. had registered or had been informed about. The earliest detailed description of the Registrar’s duties comes from around the time of the formation of the G.R.C. in March 1915. At this point apart from the duties of Registrar they were also required to run the new Enquiry and Photographic branches, together with acting as the financial officer for the Commission (see C.W.G.C. Archive GRC 4 Box 2029: Officers’ Duties: Graves Registration Commission Establishment: The Registrar and Accounting Officer (undated)). By 1917 the Registrar and their staff in London were responsible for correcting/research to verify the details of all known burials and to correct G.R.R. forms once received when a cemetery was handed over by the Army to the D.G.R. & E. Between 1919 to the mid 1920s the Registrar’s Department was one of the largest departments in the I.W.G.C., employing over 100 clerks ((See C.W.G.C. Archive SDC 65 Establishments And Duties. 1920 – 1922: Imperial War Graves Commission London, draft directory: p. 4).

The Registrar’s department also looked after lists supplied via the Commonwealth forces as well as from foreign governments (dealt with by R1b (see C.W.G.C. Archive Add 1/3/4 Box 2033 Taking over of D.G.R. & E. by I.W.G.C.: Organisation (9 December 1920)) and included perhaps a small number of staff with the ability to translate from German, an example being the case of the Indian pilot Lieutenant S.K.C. Welinkar whose German burial cross included a mixture of garbled German and English (C.W.G.C. Archive CCM 25/12562 request to R1b for translation and R1b response (30 April & 3 May 1920)).

RU series:

Files associated with changes to personal details such as military number, name etc. They are likely to have been linked to investigatory work by branches of the Registrar’s Department. A small number of RU file related fragmentary documents can be found in surviving Enquiry Files. Many RU references can be found on GRR (Graves Registration Report) forms and Concentration documents. The following is a good example of consecutive and near consecutive R.U. related references, see Concentration documents: http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/462170/CAMERON,%20ROBERT

A copy of an R.U. file letter from 1924 concerning the mistaken identification of a casualty who had another man’s identity disc can be found here: http://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/76551-mystery-of-buried-soldier/. A fragment of an R.U. series file letter R.U. 30550 refers to a Belgian soldier, Van Homells, who died on 22^nd October 1914, he is buried in Kensal Green Catholic Cemetery in one of a series of collective graves for members of the Belgian Army, as a non-Commonwealth commemoration there is no information about him beyond his name and date of death: http://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/6010820/VAN%20HOMELLS .  The copy of the Graves Registration Report:

has the following comment ‘Unable to obtain confirmation of Regtl. Particulars. RU/30550’, presumably from the Belgium Government as many other Belgians within the same plot have ‘Verified by Belgian List’ written next to them.