The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) in the United Kingdom has agreed that all of its website pages commemorating New Zealanders will now have a link to the New Zealand War Graves Trust (NZWGT) website.
The CWGC cares in perpetuity for the war graves and memorials of 1.7 million casualties from World War I and World War II in 23,000 locations.
“The New Zealand War Graves project has identified more than 32,900 New Zealand casualties to date. This number also includes New Zealanders in other allied forces in both World Wars and those who died in other 20th-century conflicts such as Anglo Boer War (1899-1902), Korea and Vietnam, and in peacekeeping missions such as East Timor and Afghanistan.
The links to the New Zealand website from the commission will be from:
* the Commonwealth War Graves Commission figure of 29,997 war dead in New Zealand forces from the 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 wars in what the CWGC describes as identified burials and memorials;
* around 2500 New Zealanders on the CWGC website who served in other allied forces.
Our initiative has up till now gathered more than 60,000 photographs of war graves and memorials of New Zealanders and the cemeteries and surrounds where they are commemorated worldwide.
Liz Woodfield, Director of Information and Communications for the CWGC welcomed the development. “We are delighted to have partnered with the New Zealand War Graves Project to pool our resources for those seeking to learn about New Zealand’s contribution to the World Wars.”
“Anyone searching for a New Zealand casualty using our website will now also be able to find the information collated by the New Zealand War Graves Project.”
“We know there is huge interest in the men and women whose graves and memorials we care for and we’re keen to share the good work that other organisations do to make those stories available to the public.”
“We are continuing to look at how we develop the resources on our website (www.cwgc.org) to ensure the sacrifices of those from across the Commonwealth during the World Wars are told to the next generation.”