The MOD War Detectives

In a Trench Chat special we speak to the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre Commemorations team - otherwise known as 'The MOD War Detectives' - who work to recover and identify the dead on the former battlefields of the Great War. Thanks to the Ministry of Defence for their help in making this possible, and special thanks to Rosie Barron, Nichola Nash and Alexia Clark who all appear in this episode. 

The images used are Crown Copyright.

Discover more about the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre Commemorations team and visit their Facebook page.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
To recover the dead from the landscape of the First

(00:21):
World War.
Welcome to a very special TrenchChat.
And I'm absolutely delighted andhonored to be joined by the MOD
War Detectives.
That's the name by which they'reknown widely through the media
and through the work that theydo officially.
They are the Joint Casualty andCompassionate Center

(00:42):
Commemorations Team.
And I'm really pleased to bejoined by Rosie Barron, Nicola
Nash, and Alexia Clark.
So thank you all for joining ushere.
And I know for a fact that thepeople who listen to this
podcast will be absolutelyfascinated to discover more
about the work that you do.
So thanks for joining us.

(01:02):
So in terms of kind of what youdo, I often say on the podcast
that the pages of First WorldWar history never stop turning,
that there is always somethinghappening and something that we
discover.
And I think The kind of workthat you do very much typifies
that because you are continuingto write those pages of First

(01:23):
World War history through whatyou do.

SPEAKER_01 (01:25):
Absolutely.
I think part of our role isfinishing the stories of men
whose stories stopped at thepoint that they went missing.
It's nice to be able to bring aconclusion, both for them and
for their families.
surviving families now.

SPEAKER_03 (01:41):
So it's also nice for us to be able to tell the
stories of these men, because alot of the men that we do
discover are sort of private,the everyday kind of men that
were volunteered or conscripted.
So to be able to tell theirstories as well is really
important to us.

SPEAKER_02 (02:02):
And it's about drilling down to an individual
story.
It's not about looking at thesheer numbers of casualties.
It's about looking at that oneman focusing on him and his
story how did he come to bethere what's his experience what
happened to him as alexia sayswhat it still means to the
families even though of coursethey wouldn't know these men
it's still a very strongemotional bond that a lot of the

(02:24):
families have with them evensome of the families who have
never even heard of theirrelative before they'll still
come out to the service andattend the burial service and
find it a very emotionalexperience

SPEAKER_00 (02:35):
And I guess that, you know, with the Great War
more than a century ago, we'rein the 110th anniversary of 1915
at the moment, it seems it's avery great distance in terms of
that being a past, but it's apresent too, as you say, through
how ordinary people react withthe stories of relatives that
they never knew, but youdiscover on these battlefields.

UNKNOWN (02:59):
Yes.

SPEAKER_03 (03:00):
First World War, it's a huge part of our kind of
collective cultural history thatalmost every family has got some
kind of story that they can tellwhether their relative was
missing or survived and camethrough.
So it's lovely for us as wellwhen we contact a family and
they're able to give us picturesand letters sent back from the

(03:20):
trenches by these soldiers.
And, you know, that's the sortof thing that families use to
get to know their relatives.
And, you know, families areproud of of their, you know,
their great uncles or, you know,cousins, etc.
You know, they're proud of theirmilitary service.
And, you know, for them then tobe able to pay tribute to them
in this way, I think is reallyspecial for them and very

(03:43):
emotional as well.

SPEAKER_00 (03:45):
And I'm sure you must take on some of that
emotion yourself, because it'snot the kind of cold, hard facts
of history you're dealing with,it is human lives.

SPEAKER_02 (03:53):
Yeah, we do get to know some of the families we
work with quite well.
Sometimes even almost over aperiod of years between, say, an
initial identification and thenthe actual burial service.
And of course, we do do secondwar cases as well.
So we get much closer relatives,siblings, children of the
soldier.
Of course, that's increasinglycommon.

(04:16):
dying out now.
But yeah, we have done somewhere we've got really close
family involved.
That brings a whole new level ofemotional connection to the
story and to what we're doing.
I

SPEAKER_01 (04:27):
think it's really interesting as well, the
emotional response that wesometimes get from the serving
soldiers that we take out withus now to deliver services.
I think a lot of them haven'tnecessarily engaged with history
before.
They haven't really, they don'thave a great deal of knowledge
about the First World War orwhat the impact of it was.
And you see them walking alongthe roads in the cemeteries,
sort of looking at the gravesand saying, none of these lads

(04:51):
are any older than I am, andfeeling some kind of connection
for the first time to their...
military family from the past,but also when we have a family,
a modern day family in agraveyard or a cemetery with us,
at the point that a flag ispresented to them and they choke
up, you can see the soldiersoften sort of having a bit of a
swallow before they sayanything, because it is

(05:12):
affecting them as well.
There is definitely thatemotional response, even from
people that you mightn't expectit.

SPEAKER_00 (05:18):
And I guess that, you know, part of what you do is
about closure for families bybringing soldiers in from the
cold, but also, I think,reminding people of the
importance of this history andour wider connection to it, you
know, and include, as you say,serving personnel in the
military today, yes.
I

SPEAKER_02 (05:37):
think what we do is...
They are almost as important tothe story as the soldier who we
might be burying.
And what are they going to getout of the experience?
How is that going to educatethem going forward?
And a lot of the time they'llcome back to us and they'll say,
well, this was the best week ofmy life.
my time in the army.
And it's not an intentionalthing that, you know, we

(05:57):
necessarily set out to do, youknow, we do this regularly, but
for them, it's a, it's, it's areally special thing to be part
of.
And yeah, and seeing them engagefrom, they maybe arrive in
France and they have anexpectation of, oh, we're in
France for a few days and it's abit of a jolly.
And by the end of the week, youknow, they'll have really
engaged with what we're doingand seeing them looking around,
wanting to know about, you know,the bullet holes in the back of

(06:20):
the men in gate, where did theycome from?
And everything, comes alive tothem in the course of that week
and in sort of almost livingthrough that experience of what
the soldier went through andmeeting his family and yeah it's
amazing what we can do for themas well as the soldiers that
we're actually commemorating.

SPEAKER_03 (06:39):
And we try and do that with every time we go away
I mean I was away in April for acasualty that was killed during
the Battle of the Rast and aspart of that week we took
everybody to to the tunnels tosort of have that experience and
to Bimri Ridge and places likethat, because for us, it's kind
of about building an entirepicture.

(07:00):
It's not just the kind of roadsthat we go over there, we
perform a ceremony and then wecome back and, you know, that's
another number ticked off thelist.
You know, we want everyone tosort of learn and experience and
to be able to kind of understandeverything that goes behind the
work we do.
I

SPEAKER_01 (07:17):
think the really important thing with that is,
again, bringing it back to thatone individual story.
It's all very well to say527,000 missing.
To talk about the Battle ofArras in grand terms or on a big
scale, but actually when youanchor it all to the story of
the one man that you're buryingand how his experience differed
very little from their own, orhow his upbringing differed very

(07:38):
little from their own, that'swhere you make people interested
in history, not through factsand figures, but through
personal stories.
I think that's absolutely Very

SPEAKER_00 (07:49):
much so.
I think it kind of very muchhighlights the kind of personal
side of the First World War.
And like you say, numbers arereally difficult for most people
to take in.
But through just one story, youcan kind of highlight the wider
history of it, particularly withthe missing, because that is
almost a unique aspect of theFirst World War, isn't it?
The scale of it.

SPEAKER_03 (08:09):
I mean, that's what can make our work really
difficult because, you know,yes, we do do DNA testing, but
when you're looking at, youknow, hundreds of potential
candidates missing from just onebattalion on one day, it does
make narrowing it down to a sortof reasonable number an almost
impossible task, especially whenthe only artifacts found with

(08:30):
the casualties are generalservice buttons or something
along those lines.
So for us, you know, artifactsthat they're found with are
really important in light of thenumbers of missing, because
without that sort of thing, youknow, it would be really
impossible for us to do our job.

SPEAKER_02 (08:48):
Of course, the artefacts.
There was the case recently thatwe did with the burial of
Private John Tain.
And that was an interesting onewhere he was found with all
sorts of different artefacts,some binoculars, which were
marked the Royal BerkshireRegiment signet ring, a watch.
And of course, initially, we'restarting to think he could be an
officer because of the artefactsthat were with him, ruled out

(09:11):
the officers using DNA testingand then all we had left really
was just, we knew he belonged tothe Royal Barbershire Regiment.
So we knew he must be 2ndBattalion.
We knew he had to have diedduring Battle of Langemarck on
the 16th of August, 1917, butthere was still 80 odd
candidates.
So if that's all we'd have had,as Nikki said, we have to be
able to narrow it down to anarrow enough pool of

(09:33):
candidates.
But in that instance, he hadbeen previously wounded and
there was damage to the bone onhis left shoulder.
So we were able to look at,through the casualty records
essentially and look at who hadpreviously been wounded and that
then narrowed it down to a muchsmaller pool of candidates and
also the anthropology telling usa potential age is also really

(09:56):
helpful because by the time youget to 1917 being under 23 is
not that unusual at the start ofthe war that might be a better
statistic but yeah it's Drillingit down to using every possible
way we can to get it down to asmall enough pool of candidates
to take DNA tests.

SPEAKER_03 (10:15):
And I mean, going along those same lines, I've got
another case that I was workingon where the casualty was found
within the sort of Long'shospital site.
He was Scottish, so we knew thathe was killed during the 1915
Battle of Luz.
We knew that he was a CameronHighlander due to the shoulder

(10:36):
titles that were found with him.
However, there were 212potential candidates that that
person could be, even though itwas from literally one day.
What this casualty did have onhim was a tiny little button
from the Newcastle CorporateCorporation Tramways.
Believe it or not, there isactually an expert on those
exact kind of buttons who I wasable to get in contact with.

(10:58):
And he confirmed to me that heactually thought it was a chin
strap button.
So that prompted us to gothrough all of those potential
candidates, 212, looking at the1911 census to see if we could
find any connection between thetwo.
And we actually found oneparticular family who lived in
Newcastle and the soldier'sfather actually worked for the

(11:20):
Newcastle Corporation Tramway.
So we then got in contact withhim, did the DNA testing, and it
came back positive.
So that tiny little button thathe probably kept in his pocket
as a keepsake, you know, endedup being the clue to identifying
someone.
And so, you know, we take theseleads where we can.
Of

SPEAKER_02 (11:40):
course, we do get the other ones, the classic
engraving your regimental numberon your spoon.
We still always do DNA testingbecause we know what soldiers
are like in terms of picking upother people's equipment.
But more often than not, we dofind that those ones tend to be
a match.
But some of them just take youstraight to them and some
require almost years' worth ofre-looking at the case and

(12:02):
drilling down to any littledetail that we can find.

SPEAKER_03 (12:05):
And of course, an issue we have is that Britain
soldiers are magpies and theypick up anything shiny that they
see on the grass.
So sometimes that can reallyconfuse us because In the
pockets, they'll have one.
In the other pocket, they'llhave another.
On the belt, they'll have sixdifferent cat

SPEAKER_02 (12:21):
badges.
They'll have Australian risingstars.
Yeah, so, yeah, it's basicallyjust looking at everything we
possibly can, isn't it?
It's like we do end up lookingat the case multiple times
before we actually finally hitthe nail on the head.

SPEAKER_01 (12:36):
You do get the super frustrating ones as well,
though, where you've got a verylimited pool of candidates.
The artefacts are all pointingyou in a very specific
direction.
but the DNA just doesn't comeout.
Either the ground iscontaminated and you can't get
DNA from the bones in the firstplace, or it really, really,
really should be this guy, butfor some reason it just doesn't

(12:57):
match.
And that's immenselyfrustrating.
I think we've all been there.
And it's just one of thosethings where you think, I've
done everything I can, but thisshould have been possible.
And it's, yeah, sometimes youhave to know when enough's
enough.

SPEAKER_00 (13:10):
And I guess you've highlighted quite a few
interesting kind of aspects ofthis work.
I mean, in the 80s and 90s, whenI interviewed First World War
veterans, they would often talkabout how they went and lifted
kit from different locationsbecause they didn't like the
stuff that had been issued tothem.
So one of them, for example, hada set of the leather pattern
equipment, which he absolutelyhated.
And after the first day on theSomme, he went past a dressing

(13:34):
station, there was piles ofwebbing gear, and he just helped
himself to a set, which alsoincluded the guy's housewife in
his spoon and his brush, all ofwhich was marked up to another
guy.
And he said, well, they weremuch better than mine, so I just
flung mine and used his for therest of the war.
So that's a kind of classicexample that the artefacts don't
always mean something, do

SPEAKER_03 (13:55):
they?
That's where DNA comes inuseful, because we can use that
to kind of confirm when we'renot 100% sure with the
artefacts.

SPEAKER_00 (14:06):
I mean, I don't know how you'd like to do this,
whether you kind of want to talkthrough some separate elements
of what you each individuallydo, or is that probably the best
way, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 (14:16):
It would be useful to tell you a bit more about
maybe ourselves and how we cameto work as well.

SPEAKER_00 (14:21):
Definitely, because it's not the kind of communal
garden job.
This is a very unusual job, andyou must come from particular
backgrounds that are relevant tothe work that you do.

SPEAKER_01 (14:30):
It's not one specific route, because what we
do is so...
uh wide ranging you would thinkactually it's just about
military history oh no there'sso much more and so we've all
got actually really quitedifferent backgrounds

SPEAKER_03 (14:45):
yeah you've got to be a professional you know
genealogist you've got to be ahuge event planner you've got to
be um you know i mean familyliaison

SPEAKER_02 (14:55):
family yeah people in country it's it's all sorts
of different hats that we ended

SPEAKER_03 (15:00):
up wearing.
Folding flags, renting coffins,these are all the sorts of
things that we've learned overthe years.

SPEAKER_01 (15:05):
None of us have had to play bugle yet, no, but that
time might come.

SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
Well, you never know.
So where did your collectivepath to this begin then, to come
to this job?

SPEAKER_02 (15:18):
For me personally, I studied French and history in
Aberystwyth and graduated.
And if you know Aberystwyth,there's nothing to do there.
So I came home and actually justsigned up to lots of agencies,
and one of them found me a jobworking in the MOD Medal Office,
which is next door to JCCC.
So my first job out of uni wasassessing army second war medal

(15:42):
entitlements, and then I hadvarious other jobs in the Medal
Office for 10 years, including Iwas working on the project when
the Elizabeth Cross wasintroduced, which is an award
for the next of kin of servicepersonnel who've been killed on
duty.
and then knew these jobs werenext door in JLC.
I have a particular interest inmilitary history.

(16:03):
People say to me on busman'sholiday if I go to EAP for the
weekend, but actually thereality is that's what I did,
but now somebody pays me to doit.
So, yeah, just had my eyes onthese jobs and just waited for
the opportunity to come up.
But, yeah, had that sort of, Isuppose, grounding in the MOD
and being around the militarythroughout the whole of my

(16:23):
working life.
So,

SPEAKER_03 (16:25):
yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (16:25):
And how about you, Nicola?

SPEAKER_03 (16:27):
I did my degree in archaeology at Bristol.
Left university, worked as anarchaeologist, decided that I
wanted something that focusedmore on kind of research and my
own interests, which wasmilitary history.
Started searching for a job, sawthe description for this one.
I thought, no, that can't be areal job.
Surely that's too good to betrue.

(16:48):
Went for the interview and gotit.
Obviously, you know, I've beendoing this job for 10 years now.
Absolutely love it.
I'm just finishing up mymaster's in First World War
Studies with the University ofBirmingham.
And one of my big interests isgenealogy.
So, you know, that's been a realbig part of the role as well is

(17:10):
obviously tracing other familiesand doing that sort of thing.
Yeah.
So, yeah, so I was just acivilian, came into the MOD
completely fresh.
But, you know, I've loved thejob.
And 10 years later, I'm notplanning on going anywhere.
I think anyone who wants toreplace me will have to sort of
cart me out.
And

SPEAKER_00 (17:29):
how about you, Alexia?

SPEAKER_01 (17:31):
I read history and archaeology at university, so a
sort of neat match between theother two.
I went to the University ofWales as well at Bangor
University.
And I've spent the last 20 yearsor so actually in the museum
sector.
So communicating history,organising historically themed
events, that kind of thing.

(17:52):
So within the museum sector, Ihad a range of roles from
editorial work, caring forartefacts, working with
researchers, conducting my ownresearch, but also front of
house, organising private views,organising let's dig in a
sandpit and find metal artifactswith a metal detector, hair days
for children, all of that kindof thing.
And I found out about the teamwhen they made a television

(18:15):
program during the World War Icommemoration period.
And at the time thought, well,that's the best job ever.
How do you do that?
I essentially have been stalkingthem ever since.
Refreshing the civil servicejobs website relentlessly until
two years ago.
the job came up and here I am.
So again, fresh to the civilservice, fresh to the MOD, but

(18:38):
with a sort of passion forcommunicating history to people
and trying to engage people intheir own history, I suppose.

SPEAKER_03 (18:46):
I think the one theme you will always find
running through all of us is ourpassion for this job and our
passion for Military history andjust history in general.

SPEAKER_01 (18:56):
Absolutely.
And sharing that with people.
It's a sort of infectiouspassion that we can't help
but...
I mean, shutting us up is thetask, really.
I think most of us could go onfor days until people have a
glazed expression.

SPEAKER_00 (19:11):
But I think people are fascinated by this, though,
because it's kind of a job thatthe average person in the street
probably would think issomething that ended...
with the first world war buthere we are you know a century
later and it's a very currentjob an important job and you're
all deeply engrossed in it whichis quite quite obvious which is
a really good thing because idon't think you could do it

(19:33):
unless you had the approach thatyou've got

SPEAKER_02 (19:36):
no i think that it would say there's so many
different tasks that we have andwe're all always so busy as you
say if you didn't have thatpassion it could quickly become
overwhelming almost so yeah it'sthat enthusiasm that keeps us
going and drives us to to keeppushing forward um so yeah it's
it's we're very lucky but yeahas Nikki said we wouldn't do

(19:56):
anything else

SPEAKER_01 (19:57):
there's a level of tenacity in all of us as well
where we're just not going tolet it go until we've done
absolutely everything but thestubbornness perhaps if you will

SPEAKER_00 (20:05):
And I guess that's all kind of part of the debt we
owe to the men and women whoserved in these two great
conflicts, that if we have achance to put something in the
past that wasn't right for them,you know, make that wrong right,
it must be very satisfying inits own right as well.

SPEAKER_01 (20:24):
I do wonder sometimes what, you know, you've
got, you know, an ordinarysoldier, a private who was
brought up by a railway workerdad and one of 17 siblings.
What you'd make of the BritishEmbassy being at his funeral?

SPEAKER_03 (20:37):
Well, he came in somewhat baffled, but...

SPEAKER_02 (20:42):
We had a lady who's French at a service a couple of
weeks ago.
She was there with the newcolleague.
They get

SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
something rather special that they wouldn't at
all have expected.
But I think it is fitting andright, whether we've identified
them or not, they deserve thedignity of a proper funeral.

SPEAKER_00 (21:00):
Well, I think that dignity is so important because
war robs so many people ofdignity, doesn't it?
So if we can give a bit back tosomeone, then that must be a
fantastically rewarding thing tobe able to do.
So in terms of your kind ofindividual kind of stuff that
you do, Rosie, I know you'vebeen working on Private Tame.
You mentioned him earlier.
I don't know if you want to kindof say a little bit more about

(21:21):
that to kind of illustrate howyou go from discovery through to
an identification.

UNKNOWN (21:27):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (21:27):
Yeah, so as I say, in that instance, there were
lots of artefacts, which as itturned out, when I read the
original Belgian report, made ita bit clearer that most of them
were just sort of almost dumped.
So I say once we ruled out theofficers and we knew he was
going to be Royal BarchRegiment, we sort of, I say, we
had a list of about 11 or 12previously wounded soldiers of

(21:52):
that battalion.
And I was working my way throughthem.
And we were almost at the end ofthe list, all negative results
when we looked at the case onceagain and spotted private team
date of death listed as the 19thof August 1917.
So as I say there's anotherthing that we have to watch out
for is that while CWC recordsare very good there are

(22:17):
sometimes errors.
So when I looked into PrivateTame a bit more actually he'd
been reported missing betweenthe 16th and the 19th but for
some reason although hisbattalion had taken part in a
large attack on the 16th it wasthe 19th was the date of death
that got taken forward.
So even when We'd done the DNAtest and I'd given the results

(22:37):
to the family.
They said, but he was killed onthe 19th.
No, no, he wasn't.
He wasn't.
He was definitely killed on the16th.
So that's all been correctednow.
But it was a particularlyinteresting case, actually,
because he was a 2nd BattalionRoyal Barks Regiment and he had
two older brothers who hadserved as regulars pre-war and

(22:57):
they'd been out in India at thetime when the First World War
broke out and come back to theUK and been sent out to the
Western Front.
And they'd actually both beenkilled while serving with the
same battalion on the 15th of,sorry, 9th of May 1915 during
the Battle of Ober's Ridge.
So they were actually stillmissing.
So we had all three of thosebrothers killed while serving

(23:19):
with the same battalion.
By coincidence, we held theburial service on the 8th of May
this year, which meant we werestill in Belgium on the 9th of
May, which was the 110thanniversary of the brothers'
death.
So having had the burial servicefor John Tame the day before, we
went down to the Plough StreetMemorial and the Padre did a
little service for soldiers andJCCC and the family for William

(23:42):
George and Albert Tame, his twoolder brothers.
So that was just a really niceway of linking it together.
And as we say, it's all aboutthat individual story and how we
can bring that alive for thesoldiers and also the experience
for the family as well.
And knowing that somebody reallydoes care about the story and

(24:04):
remembering what that mothermust have gone through losing
her three eldest children.
So yeah, it's, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (24:13):
And doing that kind of work, I mean, people
listening to this may notappreciate just how long the
process would be for you tocompile casualty lists and then
start looking at all theindividual soldiers within that.
This is not like a five-minutejob, even despite the internet
and everything else.

SPEAKER_02 (24:31):
The case for Private Tame I worked on for five years.
That's slightly artificiallylong because of COVID because,
of course, we did have a periodof two years or so where our DNA
contractor couldn't travel toArras to go around to the CWC
mortuary there to take the DNAsamples But again, we worked
through that list one by one,got a result, moved on to the

(24:53):
next candidate.
So, yeah, they do take a longtime.
Sometimes you can, by chance orgood educated guess, almost go
straight to somebody.
But it's partly chance.
If you have a list of 12 people,you might get a match the first
time.
You might get a match on the12th person you test.
But, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (25:14):
And you're constantly cross-referencing
with, I guess, war diaries andunit histories and just about
anything else that's out there,including your button experts,
as you mentioned.

SPEAKER_02 (25:25):
Sometimes there might be...
we go to a regimental museum andyou might find somebody who has
a really specific informationabout that regiment and the
quirks of how they went aboutdoing things, which might help.
But yeah, say other experts likeNicky's button expert.
And it's just really any sort ofinformation we can use, war

(25:48):
diaries, battalion historiesthat maybe expand on the detail
of the war diaries justoccasionally sometimes when you
contact the family it's them whomaybe have the final clue that
you need we worked on arededication case a few years
ago now he was a sapper who waskilled in 1914 and the only
casualty from that day was awith a particular soldier,

(26:13):
Sapper Barnden, and a dugout hadcollapsed.
So we're making the assumption,therefore, it's got to be him
who it's referring to at the wardiary.
He's not mentioned by name.
Contacted the family, said, goodnews, we've discovered his
grave.
And they said, oh yeah, we'vegot this letter that his mate
wrote to his mum.
So they were together building adugout and it collapsed on the

(26:33):
two of them.
And unfortunately, one of thewooden beams hit him on the
head.
And that's how, it's like thefamily literally has the
description of how you die whichjust tied the whole story
together yeah

SPEAKER_00 (26:46):
absolutely fascinating and Nicola I know
you've been working on theproject at Lens with the
recovery of a lot of soldiersfrom that battlefield and DNA is
a big part of that

SPEAKER_03 (26:58):
Yeah, so I mean, I think that the Longs Hospital
site is a really goodillustration as to how difficult
our job can be.
I mean, not only is it a sitewhere, you know, you have huge
loss of life in 1915, you thensubsequently had another battle
on the same site in 1917.

(27:18):
It's complex with lots oflayers.
And if you don't have artifactsto kind of help you along with
that, you don't know what battleyou're looking at, what year
you're looking at.
And not only that, but what wefound is when we started
extracting DNA from thecasualties, we were just not
getting back any profiles, anyusable profiles.
And that was really frustratingfor us because there were some

(27:42):
candidates that we thought wewould be able to identify.
But if we don't have the DNA,then there's just no way for us
to narrow it down, especiallyfrom the sort of Scottish
soldiers from the 1915 battle,because there was over a
thousand that still had no knowngrave.
And I mean, one particular set,so there was six sets of remains

(28:03):
that were recovered.
They were all sort of recoveredfrom the same shell holes, so
their artefacts were fairlymixed up.
But just within that shell hole,those six casualties, there was
Cameron Highlanders, GordonHighlanders, Black Watch, All
those different artifacts allmixed in together.
So actually being able to kindof unpick that is really

(28:27):
difficult.
And then when you throw in thefact that you're not getting a
decent DNA profile out of thatas well, it just makes it
extremely frustrating.
I mean, out of those six, wewere able to get three fairly
decent DNA.
DNA profiles out.
And we knew due to the boots anda collar badge that we had at

(28:47):
least one officer within thatgroup.
So what we did was go out to thefamilies of all the 14 officers
that were still missing, becausethat gave me a much better kind
of chance of getting a match.
Because if I was to put togetherall of those different regiments
who had missing from thatparticular day, it was nearly
over 400.

SPEAKER_00 (29:09):
Wow.

SPEAKER_03 (29:10):
So there was sort of over 400 other ranks or there
was 14 officers.
So, you know, I went for the 14officers and we did actually
manage to get a match.
And it was a rather fantasticstory, actually, because bearing
in mind, these are all Scottishsoldiers, this particular
officer, Lieutenant Allen, hisname was, I was looking for his

(29:30):
next of kin and I came across anaddress, which is just down the
road from our office.
And I knew that it was somewherethat actually my colleague
Alexia here lived quite near.
So I said to her, oh, Alexia, doyou know this address?
And Alexia said, yeah, that's mynext door neighbour.
So I then handed Alexia theletter asking them for their DNA
and Alexia was able to go inperson and actually post it

(29:52):
through the letterbox.
So it was such a fantasticcoincidence.
And then it turned out to bepositive.
So it was great to have thatconnection.
But the entire Long's Hospitalsite has been very frustrated
for all of us due to the DNA.
And I think it's sometimes a lotof people expect that DNA is
kind of foolproof.

(30:15):
You get a DNA sample, and Ithink films and TV make it look
like you can get a DNA samplefrom the very tiniest bit of
material that we have found overand over again.
That is not true.
And that also...
translates into the family we goafter so we don't you know we
don't have a DNA database it'snot something we hold it's not

(30:36):
something that's possible due tothe sheer numbers of missing and
GDPR and that sort of thing sowhen we're looking for an ex of
kin we're retargeted becausejust because you're related
doesn't mean you're going to bea DNA match so you know that's
why again genealogy can bereally complex because you know
the ages of the soldiers meangenerally they weren't married
so we're looking at theirsiblings and if their siblings

(30:59):
didn't have any disability thenwe go up further to their
parents, to their grandparents.
So sometimes the time toactually build a tree to find
the next king can take us weeks,weeks and weeks.
And it might get to the pointwhere one of us says, look, can
you please look at this tree?
I've just gone blind and I can'tsee it anymore.

(31:19):
But then other times you mightbe really lucky and you just
type the name in and up pops atree already created in Ancestry
and there you go, the next dayyou've got in contact.

SPEAKER_02 (31:27):
But of course, that's another thing is not
being misled by a tree alreadyon Ancestry sometimes.
Because of course, we have to bereally precise.
We really do need to have abiological relative.
So if we go anywhere, I'm surewe must do it from time to time.
But obviously, if we go wrong ona family tree, that could
potentially lead to a false, ifmight throw us off the centre

(31:52):
getting a match on somebodybecause we think we've ruled
them out.
So we have to be really careful.
We are looking definitely at theactual relative.

SPEAKER_03 (32:00):
And that's usually what happens if we get a
negative on a casualty thatwe've really convinced ourself
is the one.
We immediately look back at ourown genealogy to see if we could
have gone wrong.

SPEAKER_01 (32:10):
Or if there's a possibility of a break somewhere
in the tree that maybe thefamily aren't aware of.
That does happen sometimes.
Sometimes you get a family whowill say, well, you know, I'm
very happy to do a test for you,but I'm not entirely sure that
granddad was in fact granddad.
Yeah.
And that's fine because you gointo it knowing that that's a
possibility.
But sometimes you might identifya break that they're not aware

(32:32):
of either.
That obviously then raises awhole range of moral and ethical
considerations as well.

SPEAKER_00 (32:38):
I mean I'm sure that must be common because I've you
know looking through kind ofservice records over the years
the number of soldiers that werebigamists and had families left
right and center and somebodywho thought that this guy was
their father wasn't necessarilytheir father and I remember a
case in Flanders with a Canadiansoldier where they found in full
kit, all his badges, shouldertitles, collar badges.

(33:00):
The only thing that was missingwas an identity disc, but he had
three gold teeth that matchedthe dental records in the
Canadian archives.
But when they did DNA, it wasn'ta match, and subsequently the
family discovered that thefather of all this, of his
children, inverted commas, wasthe milkman or something like
that.
So it opened up a schism in thefamily.

SPEAKER_03 (33:20):
That's another thing I will quickly mention.
when you brought it up thereabout Australian records is
generally we don't have theservice records.
And if we do have the servicerecords, the dental chart isn't
filled out.
It's very frustrating, but itdoes mean that a lot of the
time, even having...
full set of remains and knowingthe height and the age, you

(33:43):
know, that doesn't help usbecause we don't have a service
record to compare it against.

SPEAKER_00 (33:48):
And the DNA, going back to the kind of DNA side of
it, I mean, I'm sure there aresome people listening who think
you can just kind of pop thatinto a computer database and it
says, oh, it's Private Clark or,you know, whatever it is.
And you mentioned about the kindof, I guess, the condition of
the DNA.
Is that an issue at Lons withthe degradation of it?
We do

SPEAKER_02 (34:09):
get it at various sites occasionally, don't we?
But Lons has been a particularfrustration in terms of the DNA.
I think probably, broadlyspeaking, it was mostly the 1917
casualties from Lons that we hadthe best chance of naming.
But several of those we haven'tbeen able to get DNA from.
You've had some, haven't you?

(34:29):
there's only a very smallhandful of candidates, but we've
got nothing to compare itagainst.
So there's no...
There's no way of taking thoseforward.

SPEAKER_01 (34:40):
We're not really sure exactly what the reasoning
is there either, because weplotted, we took the time to
plot all of the casualties ontoa map and sort of colour coding
by whether we'd got DNA or notto see whether potentially there
was ground contamination in acertain area of the battlefield
or something to that effect.
But no, it seems to be prettyrandom.

(35:04):
So, I mean, it might still beground contamination or it might
be, not contamination, but soilconditions in certain areas.
There are so many things thatcan affect DNA.
DNA is way more fragile thanpeople think that it might be.
I think, as Nikki said earlier,the television has a lot to
answer for in that respect.

(35:24):
They make it seem very easy.
Oh, yes, we'll get DNA andstraight away we'll know who it
is.
It's really not like that.

SPEAKER_00 (35:30):
No, and I guess, I mean, during the war, they put
quicklime over bodies, you know,when they were burying them.
I guess that must have an effecton the quality you can recover.

SPEAKER_03 (35:40):
Yeah, and I mean, the group of six I was just
talking about, you know, threeof them, we got four profiles,
three of them, we got nothing.
So, you know, and they were allin the same shell hole.

SPEAKER_00 (35:48):
So Lons is a really big project, isn't it, with a
substantial number ofcasualties, which I guess...
Going back to how long it takesyou to put these cases together,
that must be a fair few years'worth of work even still ahead.

SPEAKER_02 (36:03):
A lot of the casualties were found in 2018,
2019, 2020.
Obviously, again, COVID slowedthings down.
Also, the fact that we had towait for CWDC to construct the
new extension.
And so there's that moraldilemma of how far do we work on
the cases, inform the familiesof a positive match, and then
say, but we've got to wait twoor three years till we can

(36:25):
actually bury your relative.
So there's one of them we didactually do just prior to COVID,
obviously not knowing that.
In November 2019, he was one ofthe early casualties that was
found, Private Lance CorporalFrederick Thomas Perkins.
And he had a granddaughter whowas still alive, but wasn't very
well.
So we were able to actually buryhim in the old cemetery, very

(36:48):
close to the wall of the newextension.
So he was buried.
pre-covid and I think I

SPEAKER_03 (36:55):
think we I'm burying nine um two of them named on the
25th of September 2025 so that'sreally nice um and I think
they're probably the last

SPEAKER_02 (37:07):
there's some some that will go to April next

SPEAKER_03 (37:09):
year yeah

SPEAKER_02 (37:10):
That should be the end.

SPEAKER_03 (37:12):
That should be the end after that of the
casualties.
And obviously, you know,anything more that may be
discovered.
But I mean, the sheer numbersmissing from that particular
action has meant that it's justtaken a lot of research.

SPEAKER_01 (37:25):
I think there was something in the region of about
100 casualties recovered fromthat site in total.
Not all ours, some Canadians aswell.
The

SPEAKER_02 (37:32):
only thing the Canadians I don't think have
even started.
Our part of the hospital projectwill be finished.
the actual project that cwc willbe working on with them will be
going on i'd imagine for anotherfew years yeah um

SPEAKER_00 (37:47):
yeah so that works done by the canadian equivalent
of you guys is there a canadianequivalent

SPEAKER_02 (37:52):
yeah yeah there is and australian um as well some
of the other commonwealthnations in theory the
commonwealth nations areresponsible for their own
casualties but of course there'sdifferent levels of commitment
and um ability to do this workum so hopefully in um September,
for example, I will be burying aSouth African who was left from
the DQ80 project that you mayrecall from Simon Verdigan was

(38:16):
working on in 2018, 2019.
We buried all of the othercasualties and the German
casualties were buried the dayafter in October 2019.
There's just this one SouthAfrican still remaining.
So in theory...
It was kept out so they could dothat, but we'll now take it on
and make sure he's buried andmake sure they're involved.

(38:37):
But as I say, differentcountries have different
abilities to commit resourcesand funding to this work.
If they tend to be genericallyunknown Commonwealth soldiers,
then we usually take them on andbury them.
alongside our soldiers or inconjunction with other services

(38:57):
that we're

SPEAKER_00 (38:57):
doing.
And Alexia, I believe you doquite a lot of work with the
rededication cases, which is notwhere you're recovering a
soldier, but where they're in anexisting grave.
And evidence now suggests thatan unknown is actually an
identified casualty.
Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 (39:12):
We all manage both burials and rededications.
But yes, a rededication caseusually will be submitted in the
first instance actually by amember of the public.
So these are...
quite different to the majorityof our recovery work.
And the member of the publicwill lay out what evidence they
have to believe that this personwho was buried as an unknown

(39:34):
soldier in said cemetery whythey believe it to be a certain
individual.
And then that case is passed tothe Commonwealth War Graves
Commission in the firstinstance, and they sort of do a
sort of triage process, Isuppose.
They look at their own records,which aren't necessarily
publicly available, and they'lladd anything that they have

(39:55):
within their own archive to it,and they'll sort of say whether
the case has merit or not.
If they believe the case doeshave merit, it gets passed
forward to us, and then we willundertake our own research to
try to establish whether it isindeed that person or not.
We have a standard that we haveto reach for identification,

(40:17):
which is clear and convincing.
So obviously, we don't have DNAto rely on in this instance.
When somebody has received adignified, peaceful burial, we
would never exhume them just forthe purposes of taking DNA.
So it has to be proven on paper.
And we work in collaboration,depending on the sort of case it
is, either with the NationalArmy Museum or the Naval

(40:39):
Historical Branch or the AirHistoric Branch to conduct this
research.
And often we have access to bitsand pieces that the general
public may not have.
And so sometimes we can eitherprove or disprove a case.
So we've had cases recently, forexample, where on paper
everything looks great.

(40:59):
You know, it's an unknownsoldier of a specific regiment
at a certain cemetery and thereare a very limited pool of
candidates and you can put, youknow, three of the four of them
20 miles away.
So it's definitely not them.
You've just got this one nameleft.
And then for a second world warcase, we might have a service
record with a physicaldescription and the casualty in

(41:20):
the grave on the exclamationreport is described as being six
foot four and dark.
And you look at the servicerecord and it was five foot
three and blonde.
Okay.
That's not the same guy then.
So Second World War servicerecords are mostly still
inaccessible to the generalpublic at the moment but we're
able to access them via eitherour own resources or at the

(41:43):
National Archives and so that'ssomething I think that goes
missed, the fact that there areresources that aren't
necessarily fully available toother people at the moment and
it's I think very frustrating toa researcher who's put an awful
lot of time and effort into acase when we turn it around in
five minutes and say no it's nothim sorry but you know at the
end of the day we have to go bya clear and convincing standard

(42:07):
and sometimes the physicaldescriptions just don't tally um
but yes it's after the case aswell that um when a rededication
comes to us um and it's a it'sinitial format we get very
varying levels of informationprovided to us so we'll find
that some researchers will havegone through to the nth degree

(42:27):
they will have identified everypossible person it could have
been and then literally workthrough very methodically ruling
everybody out except theirpreferred candidate and then you
get other researchers who arefixated on it being their
preferred candidate and havesort of just said well it can't
possibly be anybody else becauseand those two very different
approaches um and require us tounpick them in different ways um

(42:50):
clear is a difficult standard tocommunicate to people I think
because at the end of the day itdoes have a certain level of
personal interpretation with itwhich is why we do also work
alongside like I said theNational Army Museum Historic
and Naval Historic so that wehave that rounded approach and
we do also have the facility toto go back to Commonwealth War

(43:12):
Graves Commission and discussfurther with them and to discuss
amongst ourselves where we'renot sure if we're meeting a
standard or not.

SPEAKER_00 (43:20):
And I guess some cases to some people might look
simple.
I remember seeing a grave of anunknown lieutenant in the Fourth
Cesar's in a cemetery west ofMons.
And I thought, well, it can't betoo many of them.
But actually there was three onthe Laferte-Sous-Jouard
Memorial.
So immediately you've got, youknow, three possibilities.

SPEAKER_02 (43:38):
You can narrow it down to two or three, but you
can't then...
choose between them.
Yeah, that's a particularlyfrustrating.
Of course, sometimes we do alsofind people ourselves in the
process of our work, or theCommonwealth War Commission do
as well.
So sometimes the cases aregenerated from within as well.
So yeah, I know I've submittedseveral of these, or one thing

(44:01):
we did during COVID, forexample, was going back to old
cases where we'd taken DNA, nothad a match at the time and used
our better knowledge now, betterlinks with Belgian
archaeologists, et cetera, topiece that together again.
And actually doing that work, wegot some new matches that
effectively then createdrededication cases where CWC

(44:22):
ended up changing theheadstones.
And so, yeah, it's one of thosethings we do.
If we find something, we do flagit up and pursue it.

SPEAKER_03 (44:31):
Yeah, I mean, it's not First World War, but I
recently...
did four rededications for theKorean War.
Wow.
You know, we brought, you know,I brought up myself and
researched and then, and withthe Korean War, obviously you've
got much closer relatives stillliving.
So it was quite nice to be ableto actually tell the children

(44:52):
that sort of thing.
But yeah, the trouble is though,I think there's something like
over 250,000 unknown gravesaround.
So it's not something that wecould ever be proactive with.
Yeah.
But every now and again, youcome across one that you think,
wow, I haven't

SPEAKER_02 (45:08):
seen in a century.
I was in a cemetery in Belgium,photographing headstones,
thinking we could name him.
But again, it's on top of doingthis work, it's having the time
to go back and actually in myown time, look at that.
But yeah, there was one I foundliterally days ago.
And probably in a few monthstime, I'll dig that photo off my

(45:29):
camera and maybe actually lookat it, hopefully.

SPEAKER_03 (45:32):
As far as I'm concerned, we want to name as
many as possible.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (45:35):
that

SPEAKER_03 (45:35):
is the aim of what we do.
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 (45:37):
There are interesting parallels to be made
as well between the recoverycases or the burial cases and
the rededications.
So I've got a chap at the momentwho is a recovery.
He was found in Belgium a fewyears ago and the artifacts that
were found with him, theposition in which he was found,
the casualty list all point tohim being one very specific

(45:58):
individual.
But we've not yet managed to getany DNA from the remains.
We are having another attempt ata different kind of DNA to see
if that's a better option.
But it's the sort of case whereyou're sitting there thinking,
if this was presented to me as arededication, I'd probably
accept it.
So where do I go now?
What do I do?
Do I construct something on thebasis of it being a
rededication?
Because if somebody in fiveyears' time goes, this unknown

(46:21):
member of this regiment who diedon this day in this place...
that could come through as arededication in five years time
and we would accept it.
So yeah, we've got aninteresting dilemma on our hands
with that one.

SPEAKER_00 (46:35):
And I'm sure you must have lots of dilemmas with
this because it's not alwaysclear cut, I guess, the outcome
of what you find.
No,

SPEAKER_02 (46:42):
it's been a similar case to what Lexi was talking
about.
I've got a group of Durham LightInfantry soldiers found down
near the SARS and we got a goodDNA profile out of the first
casualty and a match.
There's only three missing fromthe same battalion on the same
day.
we've got a partial profile outof the second soldier.

(47:03):
So we've had to go back to get amito DNA profile, hopefully from
that soldier.
And we cannot get DNA out of thethird soldier.
So again, if the second soldiercomes back as a match, it almost
certainly has to be that finalsoldier.
But again, it's what weight dowe put on evidence beyond DNA?
But that'll be a big debate Isuspect we'll be having later on

(47:24):
in

SPEAKER_03 (47:25):
the end.
Experience from our past hasshown us that, you know, when we
then have said, oh, well, itmust actually be that person it
can be no one else and then theDNA comes back next.
It's really frustrating so youknow it's It's very difficult.
And obviously, like Alexis said,with rededications, we have to
be as sure as we can be withoutactually having DNA tested them.

(47:46):
And I mean, I recently looked atone where, you know, the case
was very compelling, verycompelling.
And yes, there was kind of, youknow, it was this rank, this
regiment died on this day.
There was kind of only onepotential candidate.
However, when I got the servicerecord, there was actually a
dental record.
And comparing that against theexhumation record showed that it

(48:07):
couldn't have been him.
So again, it's just kind ofreally frustrating.
And again, like you said, ifthat dental record hadn't been
available, we probably wouldhave accepted the case.
So that's why it's so importantto us to sort of look at, you
know, even though we getpresented with a rededication
case that's been very wellresearched, we think it's very

(48:27):
important for us to do thatinitial additional research on
top, especially because we'venot got the security net of DNA.

SPEAKER_02 (48:36):
It's a question of not marking our own homework as
well, isn't it?
Having multiple checks that gothrough the process before it's
accepted.
Because the absolute last thingwe want to be having to do is
undedicate a grave at some pointin the future.
That's not a good circumstancefor us or the families involved.

SPEAKER_00 (48:53):
No, going back to, I guess, the personal nature of
it, the outcome is so importantand the right outcome with the
right person, the right family,it's kind of all got to come
together.
It must put a lot of stress onyou all with this because it's
not nothing, is it?
It's a really important part ofour history and for these
families, perhaps the mostimportant part of their story.

SPEAKER_02 (49:14):
What we were saying earlier, it's having that
passion, isn't it?
If you didn't have that and thiswas just work, as you say, you
could get...
stressed overwhelmed um but Ithink it's that having that
drive that just keeps us goingand working through that and
that as you say just having thatbit between your teeth to get
that result um but also knowingwhen to stop yeah you have to

(49:36):
sometimes you have to know whento stop as well

SPEAKER_03 (49:38):
I mean it can be so difficult when we contact family
and say that you know we found aeight potential candidates and
we think he might be yourrelative and the family gets
heavily emotionally involved.
They think

SPEAKER_02 (49:54):
we're saying

SPEAKER_03 (49:54):
it is their relative, which is not what
we're saying.
You know, then we have to callthem back sort of several months
later and tell them it'snegative.
That can be really difficult forus because we raise their hopes
and then we've kind of had todash them and we've kind of
awoken something in that familythat had obviously lain dormant
for, you know, over a hundredyears.

(50:16):
So it You know, that sort ofthing can be really hard for us.
And of course, you know, when wereally connect with the family,
we really desperately want it tobe their relative.
I mean, we'd like it.
We'd like to be able to findeverybody's relatives that we
get in contact with.
But, you know, there is somereally difficult emotional parts

SPEAKER_01 (50:32):
of our job.
I think on that sort of basis,we will find sometimes that
families are committed to acase, even when it turns out to
not be.
their relative to such an extentthat they will still want to
come to the funeral so I buriedtwo chaps last year in France

(50:52):
and there were only fourpossibilities for who it could
be I managed to identify the twoand I DNA tested one other chap
along the way and it wasn't hisgreat uncle but he had been sort
of actively looking for hisuncle since the 70s and
obviously making that call tosend him I'm so sorry but it's
not your great uncle, Fred, wasreally, really upsetting.

(51:16):
And he sort of phoned me backabout a month later and said,
well,

SPEAKER_04 (51:19):
do you think I

SPEAKER_01 (51:20):
could come to the funeral anyway?
Because it's the closest I'mprobably ever going to get to
being able to bury you.
Great Uncle Fred.
And so he did.
And it was really lovely.
It was lovely for the familiesof the soldiers we were burying
as well.
And they very much made him partof it, which was really nice.
But yeah, people do.

(51:40):
It's the strangest thing becauseobviously we share an office
with people who are dealing withmodern day casualties.
And that's the sort ofconversations nobody wants to be
having.
Whereas our relatives aredesperately keen to be involved
and for it to be their familymember.
It's

SPEAKER_02 (52:00):
also going back to the Second World War.
we were talking earlier, whereyou got close to relative or
career, for example, when thedifferent spectrum of emotion,
that much more intense emotion,and occasionally boils over into
anger, if we're not doing thingsfast enough, or that, you know,
it's that heightened emotion andtrying to manage that extra
level of what's going on.

(52:22):
And a case a couple of years agoin Normandy, we were really
fortunate in the end, we did geta really good positive result.
But the son of a soldier wasstill alive, and all we had was
a few small pieces of of bonefound in a Sherman.
And we knew they probablybelonged to one or two or three
of these three missingColdstream guardsmen who'd been

(52:42):
hit in a tank there at thatlocation.
And what that meant to his son,who'd been trying to find
answers to where his father'sbody had been for the last 50
years.
That was, you know, a far moresignificant if you like, process
than a first world war casewhere we're dealing with a

(53:04):
cousin or a distant cousin orsomething.
But really pleased we gotresults on that in the end.
We were able to give GuardsmanBlythe a headstone and his son
was able to join us in Normandyand it all came together in the
end.
But it was, yeah, that's one ofthose cases that will always
stick in my mind.
Yeah, Mr.
Blythe and having that resultfor him, finally having his

(53:27):
father having a headstone.

SPEAKER_00 (53:28):
I mean, you've done a lot of work in the last few
years on this and you've hadthis big project at Lons and Wim
Farms have gone up across theSomme and the Hindenburg Line,
which has resulted in therecovery of soldiers.
And there's this Canal du Nordproject coming up, the Super
Canal, which I'm sure willuncover kind of all kinds of
stuff, really.
Your work kind of never ends,does it?

(53:50):
I mean, it's not something thatyou're going to get to a point
where you've found everyonebecause that's not the nature of
this, really.

SPEAKER_02 (53:58):
And even at the moment, as we're out there for
services, because we're havingconversations with the
Commonwealth Law GradesCommission, they'll be saying,
well, we've just found somebodytoday, or Belgian
archaeologists.
I was out in Belgium a few weeksago, went to see Simon Verdegen.
He found Casualty the daybefore.
And so, you know, so it isliterally...
going on every day and I don'tknow if you've been out to eat

(54:21):
recently but they seem to havedug up every single road north
of the Menin Road and the MeninRoad itself so I suspect
there'll be quite a lot comingout of those roadworks.

SPEAKER_03 (54:29):
I think this is the thing with like the population
expanding infrastructures neededto kind of you know accommodate
all of that so I just can't seeit ever getting you know any
quieter for us really and reallythe way that records have all
become available online likethey have has made our job
easier and and it's it's causeda huge influx of rededication

(54:52):
cases because obviously you know20 years ago if you wanted any
of this information you had tophysically go to this archive
this museum you know andactually trawl through the
records but you know nowadaysit's so simple you can go online
you can have French you knowTrench maps, war diaries,
everything at the tips of yourfingers.

(55:13):
And we have had a huge increaseof rededication cases over the
last...
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (55:19):
I'd imagine as well with the Second World War
records going off the officialarchives and in the process of
being digitised, there may be aspike of Second World War cases
that come through.
I certainly walk aroundcemeteries in Normandy and
places like that.
And I think compared to Tyne Cotor somewhere like that, they
haven't been searched through byresearchers in the same way.
There's a lot of people there,which in conjunction with CWC's

(55:41):
exhumation reports, I suspectcould be named.
So that would be an interestingthing.
service records are fullyavailable to the

SPEAKER_01 (55:50):
public.
I feel like maybe you guys dothe same as well, but when we're
driving around Northern Bronxand Belgium on our way to
services or, you know,transporting soldiers or
whatever it is we're doing, andyou come across a set of
roadworks or a building goingup, you just think, you do, you
sort of think, that'll be thenext project.

SPEAKER_02 (56:08):
Yeah, we're going to be busy for, yeah, a very long
time to come, I think.
Hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 (56:14):
Hopefully.
I mean, there's the idea thatthe landscape of the First World
War is itself the last witnessof the war because it kind of
still reveals its secrets allthe time, of which the dead of
that war is one of it.
And you're the kind of peoplethat are now the contact to that
last voice.
You're the ones that arelistening to that last voice and
turning these new pages of FirstWorld War history.

(56:36):
So it's incredible, really.

SPEAKER_02 (56:39):
I think there is something special as well about
being part of the MOD doing thiswork.
It's like being part of theofficial work which is still
going on to recover these menand identify them.
And so we are such a small team.
It is a privilege to be part ofthat and to be able to do this
work.
And yeah, I wouldn't want to bedoing

SPEAKER_01 (57:03):
it.
On a slightly different tack,when we are out in country with
serving soldiers in the worldwe're currently inhabiting,
there's something slightlyreassuring for them about the
fact that the MOD is stillcommitted to identifying men who
died 110 years ago who have noclose relatives left.

(57:24):
We're still out there.
We're still identifying thosemen.
We're still giving them dignity.
We're still paying respect.
And in a world that looks likethis one does right now, I think
that serving soldiers find thata reassuring thing.
Should the absolute worst happento them, somebody will care.

(57:45):
Somebody will give them respectand dignity.
Worst case scenario, somebodywill look for them.

SPEAKER_00 (57:51):
I think that's definitely a kind of the way
that this resonates with thepresent.
And I think you feel now,particularly with the war on the
other side of Europe, the everpresence of that being relevant
to what we study in the past andvice versa.

SPEAKER_01 (58:05):
Absolutely.
And from conversations I've hadfairly recently, the war in
Ukraine is more akin in the wayit's being fought to the First
World War than perhaps anythingelse that's gone in between,
just in the nature of sort oftrench warfare.
and that kind of thing.
So there are some reallyinteresting parallels.

SPEAKER_02 (58:22):
Of course, that's another part of our, we are
civil servants and we are partof the Joint Casualty and
Compassionate Centre.
So, yeah, should the worsthappen, of course, that would
take priority over what we areactually doing, of course.
But hopefully that is not ascenario we do find ourselves
in.
But it's one of those remindersthat we are civil servants at

(58:42):
the end of the day.
We are here to serve themilitary.

SPEAKER_00 (58:44):
But I think all of you have made your own, you're
part of this history now.
You've made your own part ofthis history.
And I think that's reallyimportant for that to be
recognised.
And I'm sure I'm speaking onbehalf of everyone listening to
this by thanking you for thework that you do, because it is
so important.
It's not something that's lostin the past or irrelevant now.

(59:05):
It's perhaps more relevant thanit's ever been.
And the work that you do is soimportant and you deserve
recognition and thanks for it, Ithink.

SPEAKER_03 (59:13):
It's been a privilege to do.
Yeah, it is definitely.

SPEAKER_00 (59:18):
So thank you, Rosie.
Thank you, Nicola.
Thank you, Alexia, for this rareopportunity to talk to you about
what you do, to shed some lighton it.
And I'm sure considering whatlays ahead with the landscape of
the Western Front alone, I'msure this won't be the last time
we discuss this aspect of theGreat War.
So thanks to you all.

SPEAKER_03 (59:36):
Thank you, Alexia.
Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 (59:44):
You've been listening to an episode of The
Old Frontline with me, militaryhistorian Paul Reid.
You can follow me on Twitter atSomcor.
You can follow the podcast atoldfrontlinepod.
Check out the website atoldfrontline.co.uk where you'll
find lots of podcast extras andphotographs and links to books
that are mentioned in thepodcast.

(01:00:05):
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