Unknown Airmens Graves in NW Europe
 

Has anyone officially considered trying to identify the Allied airmen that were most often washed ashore and buried in France, Belgium Netherlands and Germany in WW2?

I know these airmen are buried in proper graves but in a way it seems strange that we accept that a WW1 grave site dug by the Germans in France and lost for nearly a century can be excavated and the remains checked for personal items and DNA samples and yet no attempt has been made to do this with the unknown graves especially where researchers are almost certain who is buried there.

On a similar note has anyone prepared a list of unknown WW2 airmen buried in the above countries, with a note of when are where they were found and when they were buried? Understandibly it is not easy researching unknown graves on the CWGC web site- yet they must know the details.

Re: Unknown Airmens Graves in NW Europe
 

Hello Larry,

Not a list but concerning a story about an individual : a unknown RAF P/O still rests in the Braine-l'Alleud Cemetery in Belgium. Unfortunately, cause the British Archives regulation, we are not able to check his medical report (especially the dental one)even if we are almost sure of his ID. This enquiry was made by our late fellow researcher, Régis Decobeck, who passed away last year. It is a shame that this 'missing' still has no name on his grave for 71 years.
Imagine the work for the other missing...

Consider it just like a thought...

ClinA-78

Re: Unknown Airmens Graves in NW Europe
 

Thanks for that

I had forgotten how stupid our rules were and heard a year or two that a very well known aviation researcher had even been told that they could no longer look at aircraft record cards in case the fate of the aircraft somehow revealed personal details about the individuals concerned. The matter was politely settled when said researcher advised that it was he who had rescued the record cards from destruction and sorted them in to order in the first place, no doubt decades before the official was even born!

I only wish that in the UK we had the same determination as the USA has (as official policy) in finding its 'missing' personnel.

Re: Unknown Airmens Graves in NW Europe
 

The individual, concerning my post, has no more relatives, so the matter is closed.
known only to god...

ClinA-78

Re: Unknown Airmens Graves in NW Europe
 

Larry
Agreed about the Americans looking for their missing wartime servicemen & bringing their bodies home ,if possible .

I was involved in a search for my RAAF father's 31 Sqdn SAAF Liberator [of 205 group RAF] in a lake in Italy & was told that, if found by underwater camera, it would remain a war grave & be left on the lake bed. The camera snagged on a helicopter wreck on the lake bed & the search had to be abandoned .

Anne