Finding old graves is a tribute for us, not depressing. And, it gives a focal point to wandering around with a little map.We found a relative who died in World War I, buried at Arras, near the Belgian border. Meet Royal Scots Fusilier, Lt. Maurice McConaghey.
Most British war graves are easy to locate through the British Graves Commission online at www.thegoodwebguide.co.uk/index.php?rid=4039. Ours took delving because of a spelling change in the last name.
Your route to finding someone: British War Graves, then go in person to Ypres, Belgium, to the documentation center (see Belgium Road Ways). The clerk found the narrative record by the commander, and the book told the story of the activity of the regiment. In the book, after earlier references, there was this one battle with the words,"McConaghey fell."
The life and death of a career military man in an era of uniforms, rank and codes. Maurice earlier had been wounded in South Africa, we found in the record of the hospital ship returning him, and brother was killed in the Sudan. WWI killed a million military in one 5-month period --and the guidebook gives it 2 pages. With amnesia, we enter into more of them.
This was cemetery number six hundred something. Not easy to find up the back roads. Bury near where you die. All meticulously maintained.
This memorial to all the WWI Scots regiments is near Bapaume.Read how the Scots pipers played "Scotland The Brave" during a battle at Loos, and also at a parachute landing. Go to history.sandiego.edu/gen/ww1/loos.html. Barbed wire, gas, smoke screens, think screams.
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