11 Sep Information and documents unique to the CWGC
In the postwar period the Imperial War Graves Commission undertook the massive job of making the war cemeteries, clearing the battlefields and undertaking a near impossible task of personalizing each identified grave and honouring the history of thousands of unique cemeteries. As the Cemeteries were gradually closed the IWGC contacted the families of The Fallen for particular family details; Next of Kin address, marital status, how killed, etc to go in the Cemetery Register (one per each cemetery). Plus a separate Final Verification form for information to go on the CH (Commission Headstone) such as Name, Age, Religion and Personal Inscription. Only 60% of these forms were returned to the IWGC (later Commonwealth WGC). For example of unique information found only on the CH. In Rosieres Communal Cemetery the CH of Arthur Hackney; killed August 9th (I.B.26). His Personal Inscription states: “Discharged from NZ Forces as unfit, having lost the sight of an eye re-enlisted at Vancouver.” This interesting detail only shows on his CH. Often marital info was supplied by the families in the Register Entry, including whether a widow had remarried or had died postwar (mid 1920s). A brief analysis of the Vimy Register indicates that of the returned Forms 26% of widows had remarried and sadly 7% had died. Average Ages can also be calculated by using Register Entries (Ages supplied by the families). Based on the analysis of the Vimy Memorial the average age of a CEF Soldier was 26.5 years.