Remembered - images from the CWGC
Commonwealth War Graves Commission exhibition
This exhibition is focused on images of Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries and memorials throughout the world. The exhibition opens on 23 October and runs until 9 November. It celebrates the 90th anniversary of the Commonwealth War Graves commission with 27 compelling images from throughout the world. A selection of photographs from the exhibition can be viewed here.
Founded by the visionary Fabian Ware, the Imperial War Graves Commission was established by Royal Charter on 21st May 1917. Its brief was one of the most ambitious ever undertaken: to commemorate in perpetuity those who had died in the service of the British Empire in the Great War – a task made all the more difficult after the onset of the Second World War in 1939.
Today the Commonwealth War Graves Commission honours 1,700,000 men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the two world wars and looks after their graves and memorials at some 23,000 locations in 150 countries. Its guiding principle is equality of treatment for all the war dead, irrespective of military or civil rank, race or creed. Remembered is a celebration in pictures of the extraordinary and diligent efforts of those who believed the war dead should be remembered in perpetuity
Click on thumbnails to see enlarged (hi-res for print) versions of these images. We also have .tif copies which we can provide on request if required - email webmaster@mch.govt.nz.
Rancourt Military Cemetery, Somme, France
Every spring there is a riot of poppies amongst the green corn planted around this cemetery but in the autumn the fields are ploughed and the red-brown mud of the Somme is predominant.
Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Belgium
Designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield with sculpture by Sir William Reid-Dick, this memorial commemorates 54,327 men who perished on the Ypres Salient and have no known grave.
Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Belgium
'Their name liveth for ever,' the Gateway claims.
Was ever an immolation so belied
As those intolerably nameless names? '
Siegfried Sassoon (On Passing the Menin Gate)
Ari Burnu Cemetery, Anzac, Gallipoli, Turkey
Ari Burnu Cemetery, named from the Cape at the North end of Anzac Cove, was made in 1915. In 1926 and 1927, graves were brought into it from Kilid Bahr Anglo-French Cemetery and Gallipoli Consular Cemetery.
Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, Longueval, Somme, France
This cemetery contains 5,568 burials of whom 3,795 are unidentified. In 2004, the remains of an unidentified New Zealander soldier were returned for interment in the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at the National War Memorial in Wellington.
The Cassino Memorial, Cassino War Cemetery, Cassino, Italy
El Alamein War Cemetery , Egypt
There are 7,369 burials in this cemetery of which 822 are unidentified. The Alamein Memorial commemorates over 8,500 soldiers and 3,000 airmen who fell in the campaigns in North Africa, the Middle East, southern Europe and east Africa.
