The grave of Pte John Joseph Mulqueeney, in Courcelette British Cemetery, Somme, France. He was killed on 17 August 1916 near Mouquet Farm.
I am extremely grateful to Steve John for providing me with this photograph.
-
Pingback from Airminded · Acquisitions on 23 November 2007 at 5:39 pm
-
Brett
Thanks for the recent info, re Harold Oliver Watt. Is there a way to find out if he is buried in a certain cemetry???chris
-
The Commonweath War Graves Commission (CWGC) would certainly be the best place to look initially, as they maintain all the cemeteries. Searching on their website finds this record of Harold Oliver Watt. Looking at it, and comparing it with the record for my relative, I'm pretty sure that Watt has no known grave. His record gives no 'Grave/Memorial Reference', and it refers to a 'Memorial', not a 'Cemetery'. So it looks like his name is recorded on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial and he's not actually buried there. (Most of those buried there were killed in 1918.)
The following doesn't prove much, but if you go to the NAA and search for Harold Oliver Watt, you can actually see his army service record. The third page of his records (it might be visible here) says that he was 'Buried between Pozieres & Mouquet Farm'. This was a temporary, post-battle burial and after the war his body would have been relocated to one of the permanent cemeteries (like Courcelette, where Mulqueeney is buried). But I note that there is some uncertainty there: it says 'Probably in [...]' and there follows what looks like some sort of map reference. So if they weren't sure where he was buried at the time, maybe they couldn't find him after the war?
But I'm not an expert on this, it's just my best guess. You could try the CWGC, I assume they are used to handling such enquiries. If you have no luck there, maybe try registering at the Great War Forum -- lots of helpful and knowledgeable people there. Hopefully I'm wrong and somebody can locate his grave! But if not it's probably better to find out now than go all the way over there and be disappointed ...
Reply
Free e-books
Post-blogging the Sudeten Crisis: The British Press, August-October 1938
EPUB format
MOBI format
PDF format
The Scareship Age, 1892-1946
EPUB format
MOBI format
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link: http://airminded.org/2007/11/11/somewhere-in-france/trackback/