A recent edition of the Wiltshire Gazette & Herald ran an article on Peter Hurcomb's pilgrimages to the cemeteries in France. In this article it stated that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintain only the larger sites in France while the public look after the smaller ones.
These cemeteries and memorials are all the responsibility of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission whose task it is to commemorate the Commonwealth's 1.7 million world war dead who are buried in cemeteries and named on memorials all over the world.
The commission employs 33 mobile horticultural groups in France who travel around the smaller cemeteries to ensure that all are maintained to the same standard as the larger cemeteries which usually have resident gardeners.
Readers wishing to find the resting place of relatives who died during the world wars can do so by accessing the commission's records through our website. The search-by-surname database can be found at www.cwgc.org
E BIRD
Commonwealth War Graves
Commission
2 Marlow Road
Maidenhead
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