The remit of the IWGC Commission – Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is to ensure that all those service personnel who died in service and between the specified dates, are commemorated with either a marked grave or an entry on a memorial.
There are many places where graves have been ‘gathered in’ over the years and in some cemeteries the actual grave has been lost. The CWGC has a number of different ‘markers’ which cater for anomalies and of course there are the huge memorials, such as the Menin Gate, for those whose remains were never found or could not be individually identified.
The present staff at the CWGC have nothing to apologise for and having identified and quantified the problem, it will be fixed.
The rules at the Armed Forces Memorial at Alrewas are somewhat different, in that the deceased must have died on duty. This leads to some confusion and I have got one man added to the memorial at Alrewas and an appeal for a female officer is being reviewed to see if she was on duty.
Old Duffer