Talk:Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Report of the Special Committee to Review Historical Inequalities in Commemoration

This report ("Report of the Special Committee to Review Historical Inequalities in Commemoration") has been published, see here. It is being widely reported and something on this should be added to the article (I don't have time to do it justice right now other than adding an external link and maybe a single setence). See this BBC report for an example. The governor mentioned from 1923 ("F G Guggisberg") seems to be Gordon Guggisberg (Brigadier-General Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg). Carcharoth (talk) 18:43, 22 April 2021 (UTC) Made a start with this edit. Carcharoth (talk) 18:53, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

CWGC Edits

Hello Labattblueboy,

In re. your edits to my work on the CWGC article:

We are in territory that is not well known in the history of the American relationship with Commonwealth Forces, though I don't mean to presume that it's unknown to you.

As background. officially, 35,000 American citizens served with Commonwealth Forces in WWI. H.C. Osborne, Report for the Minister (Americans in Canadian Forces), International War Graves Commission, October 14,1927, Library and Archives Canada - I don't believe it's available online. That number is probably higher than actual in re. "citizens", but the estimated number of American citizens and members of American immigrant families in CW forces WWI is 50,000, and 25,000 in WWII. Unofficial research in which I and others have been involved in Belgium, as an example, shows approx 500 American related burials and memorial names, +- 45% of those American born or naturalized and the rest roughly split between members of pre and post war immigrant families.

Americans in CW forces were mostly recruited by stealth 1914-16, evolving into a mutually beneficial agreement about them between US/UK when the US entered the war, and eventual American law granting them equivalence to Americans in American forces, including eligibility for burial in American war cemeteries. WW II early enlistment in CW was more open and mostly involving air forces.

There are approx. 2700 such WWI dead/memorialized in CWGC cemeteries on five continents, and 700 WW II. To your edits:

As you know, CWGC policy was buried where they fell with their fellows; US policy was choice of remain or return by families. CWGC held to that policy in WW I, but came under increasing pressure in WW II, which some in England believed was driven by the funeral industry in US. In 1947, CWGC began to recognize the requests for return as legitimate, driven by US law on the burial of war dead and the fulfillment of request for repatriation was begun. "The present request is backed by a Public Law of a mandatory nature and by what appears to be a much stronger desire on the part of the United States Government to force the matter through." - Untitled memo, 4/18/1947, Commonwealth War Graves Commission Archive (found by me in an undisciplined archive at CWGC HQ in Maidenhead).

On 12/1/1949, Geo. Springer of American Graves Reg. wrote to Oliver Holt of Imperial War Graves. "After many months of planning we have successfully completed our mission as it pertains to the removal from your cemeteries of certain American deceased killed while serving with the British Armed Forces." - CWGC Archives.

The topic and the evolution of US/UK policies in relation to each other is very relevant, esp. in the larger and largely unknown history of the mix of US and UK forces in the two wars and remains so today as American interest organizations in Europe expand their understanding and memorial practice in re. Americans buried in those nations (next frontier of this research is non-citizen aliens buried in American war cemeteries, perhaps 20%-25% of those in Flanders Field).

In the matter of headstones and nationality. An understanding of the problem as it is perceived by CWGC is demonstrated, I believe, in the WW II headstones I have seen in UK, BE, NL. There are five American flyers buried in Amsterdam New East CWGC; 3 are identified as Of USA or similar language and two are not. The Brookwood cemetery outside of London has a similar mix of US identified and unidentified Americans, ditto the Heverlee cemetery outside of Brussels. It's an indication to me of a policy in transition at CWGC from the absolute lack of that information on all WW I headstones. The Lijssenthoek cemetery Belgium, for example, contains at least 20 American citizens (and 25 members of US immigrant families), but seen en masse the impression is that they are Canadian citizens. And that was the belief until research began to show the differences, leading to the increasing Memorial Day attention to these Americans by those who previously focused solely on the three ABMC cemeteries in BE. See http://aomda.org/en/content/americans-buried-commonwealth-cemeteries

BTW, there is not - or I have never seen - a CWGC national emblem for US personnel. Some in WW II, as above, are denoted as such in words, others not. There is currently underway in Belgium an effort (of which I am a part) to firmly document CWGC Americans as part of the process related to this https://www.va.gov/vaforms/va/pdf/va40-1330m.pdf. We have documented approx 150 American citizens in BE CWGC so far,

As for the Falklands, unless I'm missing or misunderstanding something, CWGC change or evolution on policy is common knowledge in the lore of that episode. https://www.qudswiki.org/?query=Blue_Beach_Military_Cemetery_at_San_Carlos https://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/wargraves.htm

I hope to hear back from you on this. Important to get these things right, of course. Failing that I will start to recover the content on Friday. And to figure out what happened to the endnotes which are out of sync with the actual content at places that you've edited.

Regards

Happy to send documentation if you give me an email address. Vabookwriter (talk) 21:07, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

@Vabookwriter:, I'll try and address these points as best I can.

1. Citation in the edit was a problem. My initial concern was the level of citation was limited and some content appears to be primary research. Upon further examination, it would appear some of the text very closely resembles the Dickon source.
2. I have no issue with us mentioning that the CWGC did not oppose the requests for repatriation of US citizens serving in Commonwealth Forces during WWII. But to say US law "trumped" CWGC policy is a bit brutish and simply not true. There are also no shortage of cases where US repatriation requests were refused (ex: intermingled remains). As you've written above, I have no issue with something along the lines of "In 1947, CWGC began to recognize the requests for return as legitimate, driven by US law on the burial of war dead, and the fulfillment of request for repatriation was begun.", and citing Dickon.
3. The mention about citizenship is a bit of a red herring. The headstone denotes the forces/units with whom the individual served, not citizenship. Your mention of Canada is interesting as a sizable portion of its WWI forces was foreign-born. That said if there is sourcing regarding the "of USA" labelling I'm not necessarily opposed. A one-liner after the "served as" mention seems suitable. Something like "Some American citizens who served with Commonwealth forces have the notation "Of U.S.A""?
4. In fact, there is a CWGC national emblem for US personnel; it's a version of the Great Seal. It's only on headstones of those who were serving for US military.

All the best, and best of luck on your documenting project.--Labattblueboy (talk) 01:34, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Hello Labattblueboy

I am the referenced Dickon, contributing to Wikipedia according to its (purposefully vague and in need of some better structure) rules or mores about self-citation and adding new or generally unknown and documented information that derives from my research for the books that I write, the last 5 of which have been related mostly to W1812 and the two WWs. Our discussion has caused me to dig out the results of my full day in the archives of CWGC in 2014, and it is reminding me that the subject we're talking about is more textured and evolutionary from post WWI through 1949 than I had remembered and did not fully cover in my book. It may even be provocative in that, subject to another review, it appears that if an American family in the present day demanded repatriation of remains from a CWGC WWI cemetery they would have contemporary standing for removal and guaranteed interment in a US national cemetery.

In any case I'm going to head back into this and bring it back to the article hopefully within a week or two. It will be fully documented, based on material that can only be found on the archive shelves at Maidenhead or on one of my old computers. I'll let you know when I post it.

Our discussion about American labeling on headstones has been related to CW forces headstones, not to American forces headstones in CW cemeteries. There is a movement among Americans I'm in touch with in Europe to get those CW headstones or grave settings denoted as American (and there is some 1920s discussion about that in my CW archival material). In Belgium and part of NL right now that happens with the placement of American flags at known American occupant headstones, and an effort to make the notation more formal. And one of my readers rides his bike around Germany doing the same for the known Americans in CW cemeteries there. It's very much a part of the story, and if those efforts are to happen accurately it needs to be fully told.

Genuine best to you, too.

Vabookwriter (talk) 23:02, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

I have rewritten and replaced. Our exchange is provocative of a question that needs to be better dealt with in the free floating rules, regs, mores, whatever, of W participation by established authors, academics, etc. who may appear to be promoting their own work and are advised to use their best judgment about that (as I have been in a couple of different forums), and best judgment about using original research which is generally discouraged. Some of the new references are to flimsy pieces of badly maintained 100 year old pieces of paper in broken down looseleafs on a musty shelf somewhere at the end of an hour's ride outside of London on the Great Western Line. They will never be accessible to others without extraordinary effort and a good deal of luck in actually finding them, but the vague rules about self-citation inhibit the use of my own book which places them in an academically rigorous narrative and context. Interesting problem, and I plan to find the proper forum in the W universe to present the problem with suggestions for its solution. Regards.

Vabookwriter (talk) 20:17, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

@Vabookwriter: I'm not opposed to the self citation of Americans at War in Foreign Forces: A History, 1914-1945 within this context. It's an appropriate source when we are speaking about American citizens who were in service of British/commonwealth forces. The work is academically reviewed and periodically cited by others. You've also met the general intent of WP:COIEDIT by disclosing the conflict of interest. Likewise, self-citation is not in itself forbidden (see WP:SELFCITE) so long as it's done in a reasonable amount and doesn't result in undue emphasis.

I've completed some copy edits to you edit, moved the WWII content to that section, and made the content generally more concise. Some content I removed because of it being a clear case of primary research (that related to the "of USA" head stones). I've have inserted a passage concerning the "of USA" headstone notation with a citation needed tag as its clearly applicable but needs a reliable source.--Labattblueboy (talk) 00:40, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I have thanked L for moving this conversation to this page, though we have not resolved our disagreements. As a new W editor/originator above has been an enlightening experience. More below:

I’ve tried to put this loosely and informally into a W article format, please don’t hold me to the fine points of how we’re supposed to do this. It’s just among us.

CWGC in current times.

Here are three things going on in the world right now that are related to CWGC and this article. There is legislation currently underway in the US Congress that would award the Congressional Gold medal to (approx.. 25,000) Americans who fought with Canadian forces in World War II. The legislation as it is written and explained is not entirely factually correct, is not aware that 789 of those American and American related are buried in CWGC cemeteries from Algeria to the U.S., and does not foresee dealing with the problem that not all “Americans” who went to CW forces were American citizens.

See https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1709?r=17&s=2 Also see this https://militaryaviationchronicles.com/rcaf-raf-americans/hr-980-116th-congress-supporting-and-documenting-the-text/

Full disclosure, I am Chris Dickon, the author whose work is quoted at length in the article, which was a surprise to me when I came across it a couple of days ago.

As part of current worldwide unrest and attempts to rectify, acknowledge and equalize cultural and nationalistic identity, some are looking to CWGC as a symbol of the problem and a potential place of remedy. https://www.cowichanvalleycitizen.com/community/remembrance-day-what-to-do-with-the-dead-the-commonwealth-war-graves-commission/

As part of that, and of the ongoing American cultural/political movement to recognize and memorialize its war dead no matter the public opinion of a given war, there are current efforts underway to identify Americans who fought and died with Commonwealth forces. Most American know nothing about this, nor do most families know about it for genealogical research.

See http://aomda.org/en/content/americans-buried-commonwealth-cemeteries. Also see https://www.alpostnl01.com/post-history . There are now American Memorial Day ceremonies in CWGC cemeteries. The example given is in Belgium (where I have been a Memorial Day speaker in two CWGC cemeteries and I am currently doing pro-bono research into the true national identities of approx.. 700 such burials). Similar efforts are taking place in other European countries.

An impediment to that research and remembrance has been the lack of national origin information on all CWGC WWI headstones, compounded by a sort of WWII schizophrenia in which some Americans are denoted as “Of USA” or similar language, but not denoted on others, often on adjacent headstones in the same cemetery. I use two Belgium cemeteries with which I’m familiar as an example: The Lijssenthoek cemetery has a number of interesting anomalies in re. Americans, and one of them is 45 American related CWGC burials, approx. half of them American citizens, a quarter from pre-war American immigrant families and 25% from post-war same. You could walk the rows of that cemetery and never know it, or know who’s who. The Heverlee WW II near Brussels cemetery holds six Americans, some denoted and others not. For more on this seem my YouTube video at time points7:00 and 12:00. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-zDTZWOebA&t=725s

Wikipedia’s Role

Especially in recent years, Wikipedia has become a remarkable research source, at least in my experience as author of eight books of nonfiction history. The old saw that you can’t believe anything you read on an internet contraption written by amateurs just doesn’t hold, if it ever did. It still has an element of trust but verify, but I have found invaluable, and often ahead-of-other-research sources, in research for my books. W is very efficient for factual stuff like dates and names, often beyond traditional sources in laying out fuller concepts of a given history, and because of its constantly refreshed nature, often, but not always, timely and heuristic. (I’ve been trying to give back into it with some of the research from my book writing). Butin the case of the CWGC, in my opinion, the article was stuck in a previous century as I came across it a couple of months ago. There are one or two sentences about repatriation and monument controversies in the early 1900s, but nothing that would help the writer of a congressional resolution about remembrance of 800 Americans buried in the cemeteries, or the search for approx. 3500 Americans and related and the history of why they are there, or guidance for how to think contemporaneously about national and religious minorities buried under hundred year old policies.

Repatriation

And nothing but the original British controversies about the policy of non-repatriation, which is where I think Labatteblueboy and I are having a problem. It seems that whenever I put it in it is edited out, or in the last instance, reduced to virtually nothing and made inaccurate:

"The 1920 United States Public Law 66-175 ensured American citizens who were killed while in service of a Commonwealth nation were eligible for burial in national cemeteries in the United States [27] However, the commission made no repatriation policy exception for American citizens and attempts to retrieve loved ones from Commonwealth cemeteries were not supported by the American Graves Registration Service.[28]."

True as far as it goes, but some Americans were indeed repatriated (as were some other nationals) and my endnotes referring to those exceptions have been deleted and replaced by a {28} that says only Dickon 2014. The deleted endnotes are based on documents I found in broken down looseleafs when I spent a day in the CWGC archives outside of London in 2014, so I guess the endnote has the date right.

Repatriation in WW II was a much larger story, related to the Congressional medal stuff above, part of the story about the balance between US and Royal air forces, related to the story of unequal headstones for American flyers, a dilemma for those Americans who wish to do remembrance in CWGC cemeteries. My content about that, including new American law about citizens who fought with non-American forces, has been twice deleted.

As have brief mentions of the publicly demanded repatriations from CWGC managed cemeteries of Falklands Islands dead in 1982, leading to UK’s abandonment of the non-repatriation policy in 2003. The article says the cemeteries were created, but nothing after that. Deleted.

As a subject, repatriation vs. non-repatriation is symbolic of a much larger discussion about war and those who die in it. The US and UK were going in opposite directions on the policy during the two wars. In both countries and cultures, the discussion and debate was about who owns the bodies of the dead, what is owed to their families. Those discussions continue in modern times and the CWGC is sitting right there in the middle of it all, even if not in the articles of Wikipedia. Vabookwriter (talk) 22:00, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Irish Civilian War Dead

(Comment relates to now archived talkpoint.)

I have found the answer to the question I raised; I have today discovered that southern Ireland's civilian war dead caused by German action are commemorated by the CWGC under the heading of "Eire Civilian War Dead". There are currently 51 commemorated, the two largest groups of civilian casualties being the victims of the North Strand Road air raid on Dublin and those of the explosion of a sea mine at Ballymanus, Co Donegal. So there was no opt-out by the authorities of the Eire/Irish Free State occasioned by their neutrality stance within the British Commonwealth.Cloptonson (talk) 18:15, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

UNESCO designation

Dropping a note here to point out the recent (September 2023) UNESCO designation, and the article that has been started: Funerary and memory sites of the First World War (Western Front). That UNESCO designation covers more than just the CWGC sites, but will be of interest to those editing those topics (who may be able to assist with the right links as well). Something could be added to this article as well, along with something on the Belgian, French and German memorials and cemeteries (we lack articles on many of these, but some exist on other wikis). Pinging those who have edited that article so far: User:Nthep, User:Onel5969 and User:Mbkv717. Carcharoth (talk) 13:14, 8 October 2023 (UTC) See also Category:Funerary and memory sites of the First World War (Western Front). Carcharoth (talk) 13:20, 8 October 2023 (UTC)