War graves commission launches
virtual tours of remote sites
Story by Stephen J. Thorne
For more than a century, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has tended war graves the world over, beginning with the First World War and, since 1945, the Second, as well. That’s some 1.7 million war dead in 150 countries.
There are 110,000 Canadians among them—the vast majority buried close to where they fell. It wasn’t until the 1960s—and notably, during the Afghanistan war—that Canada started bringing its war dead home.
Many others, however, died as the result of war wounds, illnesses and other war-related causes and are thus buried in Canada—almost 19,000 commission-administered graves, in fact, located in nearly 3,000 cemeteries across the country. About 1,900 of those cemeteries have just a single war grave.
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