When is a war grave not a war grave...?

[aestorm]

Jules
I come late to this subject of war graves & my reply is purely personal & subjective.
My RAAF father is still missing in action .His 31 SAAF Liberator Bomber, with 8 crew, disappeared in Oct. 1944 while on a supply drop in Italy. [part of the 205 group RAF]
The plane more likely to be in a lake or in the sea off the Italian coast , than in land as I think it would have been found by now, even if on a mountain side as people often walk in the mountains.

When a search was conducted for the plane in an Italian lake in 2006 I was told by British official bodies that, IF found it would have to be a war grave & any remains would stay under water.I was very anxious about this as I did not want to know "they " were lying there & no attempt made to "rescue " them or identify them .I do understand the difficulties of bringing remains out of a plane which has been underwater for 60 + years or indeed if anything would remain .In the event the search was cut short by problems with the underwater camera. But my very elderly mother deeply wants to know where my father lies, as do thousands of other relatives of M.I.A. wartime servicemen .

The last sentence in your post is what many feel.

Anne