MIA

Obviously the “Known unto God” burials are some of the “Missing” that were unable to be identified. The bulk of these will be aircrew, but don’t forget that many troopships etc were also sunk during evacuations, such as Dunkirk, Lancastria, Crete, Italy and in the Pacific.

Every possible effort was made to find burials after the War, but witnesses not always available or were still around.

Thanks for that , never thought of looking at the Runnymeade listing. It is truly a sobering thing to think of so many with no known grave.

I have visited a lot of CWGC graves over the years and it can be a very humbling experience.I always find the sight of so many “known only to god” headstones terribly sad.

What brought this back to my head is the fact that the grave of an American B-17 crewman has recently been discovered and his remains will hopefully be going home soon. He had been incarcerated in Stalag luft III and died as a result of a fall.He was buried close to a hospital and missed at the end of the war as the records were incomplete.

Made me wonder if there were many more servicemen who were known to have been captured and subsequently declared as MIA?

The Air Forces Memorial, Runnymede is a good place to start:

http://www.cwgc.org/search/cemetery_reports.aspx?cemetery=109600&mode=1
It lists over 20,000 of the missing. Until I checked the link I didn’t realise just how many names were recorded. Appalling.

Looks like he has gone. Hoorah.

Is this code for something?