War grave

Normandy American Cemetery in August 2010

A war grave is a burial place for members of the armed forces or civilians who died during military campaigns or operations. The term does not only apply to graves: ships sunk during wartime are often considered to be war graves, as are military aircraft that crash into water; this is particularly true if crewmen perished inside the vehicle. Classification of a war grave is not limited to the occupier's death in combat, but includes soldiers who die while in active service: for example, during the Crimean War, more soldiers died of disease than as a result of enemy action.

A common difference between cemeteries of war graves and those of civilian peacetime graves is the uniformity of those interred. They generally died during a relatively short period, in a small geographic area and consist of service members from the few military units involved.

In the United Kingdom, 67 ship wrecks and all underwater military aircraft are "protected places" under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 which imposes restrictions on their exploration and marine salvage.

Rupert Brooke's poem, The Soldier - "If I should die, think only this of me: / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England", is a patriotic poem about the possibility of dying abroad during a war. Brooke is himself buried in a war grave on Skyros in the Aegean Sea, having died whilst en route to fight in the Gallipoli Campaign.

The War Graves Photographic Project, founded in 2008, aims to create an archive of names and photographs of all Commonwealth military graves and memorials from 1914 to the present day.

Gallery

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  American Civil War graves, Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery

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  A CWGC cemetery from the First World War: Tyne Cot in the Ypres Salient

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  HIS LAST MESSAGE: NO MORE WARS FOR ME - A headstone in the Jerusalem British World War I Cemetery on Mount Scopus

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  Soviet WWII graves, Tehumardi, Saaremaa, Estonia

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  German WWI war grave on the eastern front.

See also

• American Battle Monuments Commission
• Burial at sea
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• Missing in Action
• Mortuary Affairs
• National cemetery
• The Unknown Warrior
• Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
• War memorial
• Wreck diving

Sources

• Major and Mrs Holt's battlefield guide to the Ypres Salient ISBN 0-85052-551-9
• SI 2009/3380 The Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 Order no 2009/3380