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Hawkey01 9th May 2017 10:40

Commonwealth War Graves
 
Driving through one of our local towns yesterday - in a traffic hold up - my wife noticed an entrance to a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery. I found this unusual so had a look on Google this morning. There are two sites in Bridgwater one the chapel which we passed and another in and area called Wemdon, were the graves are. I looked at the list of fallen a total of 37. What struck me was that of these only two were from the Commonwealth - 1 Australian and 1 Canadian. The rest were all UK and from various services. Many were RN.
Can anyone explain why we have a CWG there with mostly UK fallen and how would they have come to be buried there in the first instance.
Having lived in this area for 47 years I was surprised that I had never seen it before.

Neville - Hawkey01

Chadburn 9th May 2017 11:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hawkey01 (Post 2662)
Driving through one of our local towns yesterday - in a traffic hold up - my wife noticed an entrance to a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery. I found this unusual so had a look on Google this morning. There are two sites in Bridgwater one the chapel which we passed and another in and area called Wemdon, were the graves are. I looked at the list of fallen a total of 37. What struck me was that of these only two were from the Commonwealth - 1 Australian and 1 Canadian. The rest were all UK and from various services. Many were RN.
Can anyone explain why we have a CWG there with mostly UK fallen and how would they have come to be buried there in the first instance.
Having lived in this area for 47 years I was surprised that I had never seen it before.

Neville - Hawkey01

Neville, it may be that more Commonwealth Servicemen were buried there during the War, but were uplifted and reinterred back in their own Countries at the request of their Family Post War.

Chadburn 9th May 2017 11:32

Possibly a Military Hospital in the region during the War?

Hawkey01 9th May 2017 12:19

No listed Military hospital in the Somerset area. However I did find a mention that 18 men had been transferred from the Military hospital in Bristol to Bridgwater Hospital.

Neville


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