You often see members of the same aircrew buried in a joint grave who could not be identified personnely. But does anybody know why you find headstones of joint graves with men mentioned who died on different dates? This picture was taken in Amsterdam. Foto: Pieter Schlebaum
There are a few reasons that are possible and all relate to what happened before they were moved to the concentration cemetery. The sweeps to locate the graves of missing airmen 1945/46/47 initially took the form of exhumation and visual examination of remains to record any visible identification. If two sets of remains from a single initial burial location could not be positively identified then a communal grave under close or single headstone was used. Eg two airmen buried at different times in the same churchyard, no definite local knowledge of who was buried where and no identifiable marks or equipment to narrow down who is in which grave. When moved to concentration cemetery rather than mark both as "known unto god" since they could only contain the remains of two men then a common headstone identifying both men. Another reason could be that the grave of an earlier man was reused for a later burial. Since remains of both were together the Graves Concentration reburied them together. The exact reason will still be in the MRES files. Regards Ross
To make it more difficult: this row at the cemetery contains the graves of three different crews. I have put this overview together for a Dutch forum. Rij means row, graf means grave. They were buried as follows: Lancaster ED447 Sergeant Ralph Patrick Cambell - rij C, graf 5 Sergeant Wilfred Eric Debeurier - rij C, graf 1 Sergeant John Charles Jacques - rij C, graf 5 Sergeant John Leslie Enery Barden - rij C, graf 7 Frank James Belanger - rij C, graf 3 Sergeant Samuel David Wall - rij C, graf 6 Warrant Officer Gordon James Hutchinson - rij C, graf 2 Halifax DG423 Sgt D C McNab - rij C, graf 2 P/O N D Fleming - rij C, graf 3 Sgt F N Slingsby - rij C, graf 3 Sgt B F Keable - rij C, graf 2 Sgt C C Strain - rij C, graf 4 Sgt J Wood - rij C, graf 4 Halifax HR786 P/O George William Locksmith - Runnymede Memorial P/O. John Isaac Noble - Runnymede Memorial P/O. Reginald Tunstall - Runnymede Memorial P/O. Alfred Jones Hendry - Runnymede Memorial Fl/Sgt. Hugh Alan Roberts - Runnymede Memorial Sgt. Cyril Norman Victor Cogdell - rij C, graf 5 F/O. Gerald Olivier Marcel Massip-de-Turville - rij C, graf 5
