COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, abbreviated to CWGC, is a joint governmental organisation responsible for marking and maintaining the graves of members of the Commonwealth of Nations' military forces that died in the two world wars, to build memorials to those with no known grave, and to keep records of the war dead. It was formed in 1917 as the Imperial War Graves Commission and adopted its present name in 1960.

Based in Maidenhead, the United Kingdom, The commission is responsible for the commemoration of 1.7 million Commonwealth servicemen and women in 150 countries worldwide. It has constructed, and maintains, around 2,500 cemeteries and is also responsible for Commonwealth war graves in other cemeteries. There are 73,000 such cemeteries containing Commonwealth war graves worldwide, of which over 12,000 are in the United Kingdom.

The six member nations are Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Newfoundland was a founding member but ceased to have separate status from 1949, when it became a part of Canada. The President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is HRH The Duke of Kent.

CWGC graves are also located in the United States and Republic of Ireland.

The largest cemeteries are in France and Belgium, and were built after the First World War. A number of cemeteries are also present in the Middle East and Iraq, as a result of battles against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, and in North Africa, the Far East and Italy from the Second World War. The largest Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery is Tyne Cot Cemetery, north of Ypres, which contains nearly 12,000 graves; the smallest maintained isolated site contains the remains of only Rupert Brooke, and is located on Skyros. Memorials were also constructed to commemorate the dead who have no known grave; the largest of these is the Thiepval Memorial, which is 45 metres high and carries the names of over 72,000 missing servicemen from the Battle of the Somme.

A Project is currently underway to photograph the graves and memorials to all service personnel from 1914 to the present day. The work is being carried out by the British War Memorial Project in conjunction with the CWGC and the Ministry of Defence. The project has archived currently 500,000 photographs (at November 2006).