New Zealand servicemen honoured through new technology at UK cemetery

The vast contribution made by New Zealand servicemen and women during the two world wars are revealed in new information panels installed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) at Tidworth Military Cemetery in the United Kingdom.
Using smartphone technology, the panel at Tidworth is among 500 that the Commission is installing worldwide as part of an initiative to provide more information to the public during the centenary of the First World War. More than 100 of the panels are being erected in the UK, to provide information about the many thousands of Commonwealth war dead who are buried or commemorated there.
Each of the panels carries information about the cemetery or memorial and a QR (Quick Response) code which, when scanned with a smartphone, provides access to further information, including the personal stories of some of the casualties buried or commemorated at that particular location. Included in the QR codes on the panel at Tidworth is the story of Lieutenant Carey – a young New Zealand officer who sacrificed his life to save his comrades.
Claire Douglas, the CWGC’s Centenary Production Co-ordinator explained: “The Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s use of the very latest communication technology is aimed at bringing to life the stories of those who gave their lives during the two world wars.
“The history and stories revealed on our panel at Tidworth give a fascinating insight into the impact the war had on the local area, and how servicemen and women, from thousands of miles away in New Zealand, volunteered to serve overseas.”
The CWGC commemorates almost 30,000 New Zealand servicemen and women who died during the two world wars. Just over 100,000 New Zealanders served overseas in the First World War, many of them young men who had never left home before. More than 18,000 died as a result of the war and over 40,000 more were wounded.
In the Second World War approximately 140,000 New Zealand men and women served from a total population of 1,600,000. Fatal casualties during the conflict numbered almost 12,000. New Zealand's ratio of killed per million of population was the highest in the Commonwealth.

Background
1. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (www.cwgc.org) maintains the graves of the 1.7 million Commonwealth servicemen and women who died during the two world wars. It also holds and updates an extensive and accessible records archive.

• The CWGC operates in over 23,000 locations in 153 countries across all continents except for Antarctica.

• The CWGC provides teachers and youth workers with a comprehensive range of educational resources and support materials so that future generations remain engaged in the work of the Commission and continue to remember those who died in the two world wars.

• 21 May 2017 will be the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission by Royal Charter.

• The CWGC strives to encourage ever greater numbers of the public to our sites worldwide, particularly lesser known sites and campaigns, while helping them to understand the historical context of the two world wars.

2. The Work of the CWGC in the UK
In the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorates more than 300,000 Commonwealth servicemen and women who died in the two world wars – their graves and memorials can be found at 13,000 locations. The majority of those buried in the UK are men and women who died at home in military hospitals, training accidents or air raids. Some were killed in action in the air or at sea in coastal waters, their bodies washed ashore.
3. Tidworth Military Cemetery and Personal Stories
Tidworth Military Cemetery contains burials of both wars and was directly connected with training grounds on, or near, Salisbury Plain.
During the First World War, the cemetery was used for burials from Tidworth and Fargo Military Hospitals and the 417 graves, many of them of Australian or New Zealand servicemen, are scattered throughout the cemetery. There are over 100 Second World War graves in the cemetery, two substantial groups of which can be found in sections F and D. The cemetery also contains 40 war graves of other nationalities, many of them Polish.
To access the personal stories of some of them visit https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/45411/tidworth-military-cemetery/