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PROVIDING CLOSURE FOR VETERANS’ FAMILIES
Today the repatriation of Service
personnel killed overseas is an important role for the Joint Casualty and
Compassionate Centre (JCCC). In previous years due to logistics and numbers
it was a different story and many lie in the battlefields where they fell,
until now...
The JCCC’s Historic Casualty Casework Team arrange
commemorative funeral services, whenever human remains of British Service
personnel are found on battlefields or at aircraft crash sites. These are
usually uncovered as a result of building work; land reclamation or rerouting
of roads. The team is notified if the find is deemed to be British.
The
potential scale of work is huge; there are still around 20,000 RAF personnel
listed as missing on operations. Thousands of Army personnel from WWI and
WWII have no known graves. Whilst many will never be identified, or may
already have been buried as unknown soldiers, new discoveries are made
every year.
Historic
Casework involves a lot of investigating; tracing old flight paths, checking
crew manifests, regimental records, casualty lists etc. National Archives,
local historians, the Air and Army Historic Branches, Commonwealth War Graves
Commission (CWGC) and a whole host of international resources are called
upon to try to identify any human remains recovered from a battlefield. The
smallest pieces of evidence can lead to a Service person’s identity
being found and after a further round of investigation, any surviving relatives
of the deceased is traced.
However,
the identification process is only the start. Where a person’s identity
has been positively confirmed, a full military funeral is normally offered
to the family. The Single Service and wherever possible the deceased’s
regiment or squadron will help providing services such as a burial party,
a bugler and a firing party. Local embassy staff may also attend. Flowers
have to be arranged along with accommodation for the relatives. The logistics
of such an event is enormous with the added difficulty that the ceremony
is often held in another country. All the arrangements are put in place by
the JCCC.
Four funerals are conducted every year, on average
two Army and two RAF.
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