Collecting the dead

Locating the war dead

The grim work of the Directorate of Graves Registration & Enquiries on the Western Front after the Great War

I was reading a fascinating article by Lieutenant Colonel Graham Parker and Joanna Legg in Stand To!, the journal of the Western Front Association, this morning. In "The Unidentified Irish Guards Lieutenant at Loos: Laid to Rest", they make a very compelling case that in 1992, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission correctly identified the grave of Lieutenant John Kipling at St Mary's ADS cemetery near Loos, France. In my mind, their evidence brings to a close a century old mystery.

However, in one part of their article, they describe the work of the Directorate of Graves Registration & Enquiries, the organisation responsible for collecting the war dead and trying to identify the bodies for burial. There is a description from one of the men tasked with this grim work, and I reproduce it here. Private J McCauley, recovering from wounds, was attached to one of the new special burial details between August and November 1918. He noted how:

“For the first week or two I could scarcely endure the experiences we met with, but I gradually became hardened.

“Often have I picked up the remains of a fine brave man on a shovel. Just a little heap of bones and maggots to be carried to the common burial place. Numerous bodies were found lying submerged in the water in shell holes and mine craters: bodies that seemed quite whole, but which became like huge masses of white, slimy chalk when we handled them.

“I shuddered as my hands, covered in soft flesh and slime moved about in search of the disc, and I have had to pull bodies to pieces in order that they should not be buried unknown. It was very painful to have to bury the unknown.”

I am relived that my own great grandfather was fortunate enough to have been buried, identified, immediately after his death.

BENEDICTINE MILITARY CHAPLAINS IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR - James H. Hagerty

In a follow up to this article: http://thescribblerdotbiz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-unsung-of-great-war-battalion.html I have located some additional information on the stout Lane-Fox, the padre to the London Irish Rifles.

From the above mentioned book:

"Dom John Lane-Fox of Fort Augustus was another Benedictine to be commissioned early in the war. Having received his temporary commission in September 1914 he served with the 1st London Irish of the 47th Division and was with them as they kicked a football across no-man's-land in their assault on German positions during the Battle of Loos in 1915. For his ministrations on the battlefield Fr Lane-Fox was recommended for the Military Cross but an accident on March 3,1916, placed the award in jeopardy. During grenade practice a bomb exploded in Lane-Fox's hand seriously wounding him and killing Lord Desmond Fitzgerald. General Cecil Pereria wrote immediately to Mgr Bidwell, Cardinal Bourne's secretary, informing him of the incident and of Lane-Fox's anxiety that he would not be able to celebrate Mass again due to the injuries to ‘his right eye and the fingers of his right hand.' He asked, on Lane-Fox's behalf, for an assurance that the injured priest would not be prevented from saying Mass. Pereria pointed out that he received nothing but the best accounts of Fr Lane-Fox and that he would be ‘very much missed by the men.' Bidwell was able to reassure Lane-Fox, via Pereria, that he could get permission to officiate when he had recovered. Mgr Keatinge, conscious as he was of the chaplains' reputation and the importance of them receiving their fair share of decorations, described the incident as ‘fooling around with bombs.' Eventually, Fr Lane-Fox received the award and was later mentioned in despatches. He was also recommended for the French Medailie Militaire for his ‘remarkably gallant and efficient' work for French civilians, in 1918 he was promoted to temporary Chaplain 2nd Class with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, to be Senior Catholic Chaplain to the 47th Division."

I understand from another source he lost an eye and some fingers.

As I said before, unsung heroes.