Wednesday 21 January – MOD War Detectives – Alexia Clark
A good crowd on a miserable rainy Wednesday evening to hear Alexia Clark talk about the work of the MOD War Detectives based at Imjin Barracks in Gloucester.
Alexia began by telling us about the work of the MOD’s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC), which the Commemorations Team – the War Detectives – is a part of. More details here
The team’s main aim is to identify the missing British casualties of the two World Wars and the Korean War. To put this into context, around 1.2 million British military personnel were killed in WWI and nearly 527,000 have no known grave. Of these, around 184,000 are buried in graves with no name on the headstone (“Known to God”). The figure does include those lost at sea, but it’s still a staggering number for those with no known resting place and was a source of great distress to many families at the time.
Alexia briefly explained how the battlefields were cleared and the bodies of the dead recovered from temporary wartime cemeteries and concentrated in larger cemeteries by the Graves Registration Units after WWI ended. This was a meticulous process involving the use of grid searching using wartime trench maps, the recovery of artefacts (such as badges, buttons, military equipment and personal possessions) that might help to identify the casualty, and detailed recording. This article gives some further details of what happened when a soldier was killed and how the battlefields were cleared What happened to a soldier who died? – The Long, Long Trail
Alexia then described in detail two recent case studies, one involving physical identification and reburial, and one involving archival identification and rededication.
First Case Study – Physical identification of discovered remains and full military reburial
This example took place near Lens in France where the building of a new hospital has turned up so many WWI casualties (the ground was fought over several times) that a new extension has been built on the nearby Loos British Cemetery. To date over 120 sets of remains of Commonwealth soldiers have been uncovered during the building work.
In the spring of 2020, the bodies of four soldiers were discovered laid out together in what was obviously a battlefield grave. Artefacts (cap badges and shoulder titles) identified them as being from the 5th Battalion the Lincolnshire Regiment, and the type of gas mask found with one of them was of a style not issued until 1917, which gave an earliest death date. From this range for the date of death a list of possible candidates missing from the Battalion was made and it was narrowed down to only four, who were all believed to have died on the same date.
The next step is to try to extract DNA from each body and then to build a family tree for each man (using the same public sources as we would do for our own family history research) to try to identify potential descendants who could be asked to donate DNA to see if there was a match. Two types of DNA matching are commonly used: Y-DNA which relies on an unbroken male line, and mitochondrial DNA which relies on an unbroken female line (but can be passed from mother to son for one generation only). Which one is used will depend on what descendants are found. Suitable donors from all four families were found although one of these turned out to have a “break” in their tree making them not a match. Mitochondrial DNA matches were eventually found for all four and they were positively identified.
Private Arthur Cook, Private Robert Cullum, Private John Fraser and Private William London were all from Grimsby originally, and though they came to army service at different times, they all found themselves part of the final days of the Battle of Arras in May 1917. All four men were part of the same Lewis Gun Crew, and they died together on 5 May 1917 – Fred Blakey MM was the fifth member of the crew, and he survived albeit severely wounded. Ptes Cook, Cullum, Fraser and London were listed as missing, and following the war their names were added to the Arras Memorial. A full military funeral for the men was held in October 2025, led by Padre Joe Roberts of 1st Bn The Royal Anglian Regiment (the successor unit to the Lincolns), and the bearer party and firing party were also made up of serving soldiers from 1st Bn The Royal Anglians. Artefacts such as shoulder titles that had been found with the men were presented to the families. New headstones with the names and inscriptions chosen by the families have been erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).
Second Case Study – Identification through archival research of an unknown casualty and rededication with named headstone
There are a number of dedicated researchers (some of the most prolific of whom are Belgian!) committed to identifying those unknown casualties buried only under a “Known to God” headstone. CWGC will not permit exhumation for physical testing so these cases rely on meticulous archival research using resources such as trench maps, unit war diaries, and the CWGC database itself, which also contains information on where a casualty was originally found (the Graves Registration Unit documents).
This case study involved an unknown officer of the Dorsets, who had been identified as such by artefacts found with him, but whose identity was not known. A list of possible candidates was drawn up and then the actions of each at the time of their death was examined and overlaid on the very detailed trench maps which still survive. Once this was narrowed down to only a few possible candidates it was shown that one of them – a Company Commander – had been in almost exactly the same location as that where this unknown body was found, shortly before his death and this was corroborated by his service record. CWGC first assess the merit of a case like this and then pass to the MOD War Detectives for them to review and confirm. In this case, it was accepted that sufficient evidence had been provided and the identity was confirmed.
Captain Ernest Blencowe of the Dorsetshire Regiment, died defending The Bluff in February 1916. His grave was rededicated in June 2025, with a new headstone in the presence of two of his great-grandchildren, accompanied by a young historian who has studied the regiment and Captain Blencowe’s story extensively. The service was held (as those in Belgium apparently usually are) in the presence of a large crowd including the Mayor of Ieper, the Belgian Defence Force and the Royal British Legion. It was led by Padre John Storey of 5th Bn The Rifles (successor Regiment to the Dorsets, who by coincidence had attended the same school as Captain Blencowe) and supported by serving personnel from 1st Bn The Rifles who flew in specially from Cyprus for the occasion. Buglers from The Band and Bugles of The Rifles were also present.
Alexia finished by saying that in 2025 the team had arranged 56 burials and 32 rededications. Clearly, despite over one hundred years having passed since the end of WWI, the task is far from finished.
