Naming our unknown soldiers
THE PEOPLE WHO PAINSTAKINGLY IDENTIFY ANONYMOUS CANADIAN REMAINS IN EUROPE
We knew they were Canadian, but for more than 100 years we didn’t know who they were. Lieutenant Francis Henry Hemsley, Sergeant-major Alexander Mcvean and Sergeant Arthur Melvin were all Canadian soldiers and they all rested anonymously in European graves until this past year, buried under headstones marking them as “known unto God.”
They are among dozens of soldiers identified through the government’s casualty identification program, which has identified remains of 36 Canadians since 2007 and is working on dozens more.
Dr. Sarah Lockyer, a forensic anthropologist who oversees the program at the Department of National Defence, said identifying and honouring fallen soldiers is a sacred responsibility.
“These individuals died for their country and then the worst happens, their burial location was lost or their identity was lost,” she said. “If we have the chance to be able to return their name and their face to them, then I think it’s the least that we can do for these individuals.”
Lockyer’s work falls broadly into two categories: remains that are discovered in European battlefields, and Canadian soldiers buried under headstones that list them as unknown soldiers.
There are nearly 7,000 soldiers from the First World War buried in such graves, with headstones that identify them as Canadian, in some cases with their unit or rank, but without their name.
DNA technology has advanced considerably since the program began in 2007, but Lockyer said tracing DNA is no magical solution to identifying the remains. There is no DNA database of First World War soldiers, for one thing. And it’s not always possible to extract a DNA sample.
“We continue to encounter this today when we find skeletons (discovered) because of construction or other human activity. It is entirely dependent on how well, or not well, that DNA has survived in the bone,” she said. “The evolution of DNA is incredible, but we are still consistently encountering issues of actually extracting the DNA from the bone.”
In addition, the intergovernmental Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), to which Canada belongs, doesn’t allow proper graves of unknown soldiers to be disturbed even if it could lead to identification. So DNA and other forensic techniques are only available in cases where remains are found outside of a cemetery.
IT’S THE LEAST THAT WE CAN DO
“We believe that all those in our care should be allowed to rest in peace and therefore we do not permit the disturbance of a CWGC grave for the purposes of identification,” the commission said in a statement.
The commission said that while it doesn’t permit exhumations, it will assist with using historical research to determine the identities of soldiers buried in unmarked graves and will replace a gravestone with the name of a fallen soldier if research can identify the person buried there.
“We work closely with partners, including the military authorities of our member governments, to formally adjudicate that a grave is that of a missing Commonwealth war casualty,” the commission said in a statement. “The burden of proof required is rightly high and investigations can take a considerable time to complete. The Commission headstone marking the grave is then changed and service of rededication may be held.”
Many of the unknown graves on European battlefields do provide some information. If a headstone lists an unknown soldier’s rank or unit, that can provide a decent starting point for researchers.
Lockyer said that often leads to a process of elimination: there may be only so many missing soldiers that would fit a particular rank in a particular unit.
“It is kind of looking at all those questions, questioning absolutely everything and then trying to see: is there one person left?” she said.
Many of the cases Lockyer works on come from volunteers and military historians who do their own research and then bring it to the government’s attention.
One of those volunteer researchers, Al Lloyd of Kingston, Ont. helped in 2009 to identify Lt. John Francis Maloney, who was killed in November of 1917 and buried as an unknown in Belgium.
Lloyd’s grandfather served in the same battalion, the 21st, as Maloney and when he learned of the unknown grave he knew within minutes it had to be Maloney because the battalion’s other lieutenants were all accounted for.
“They thought they knew where they all were except one. And to be honest, I was surprised nobody had done it before me,” said Lloyd.
He said while the case was straightforward it still took him months to put forward evidence that the Canadian government and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission would accept.
“I had to go in and I probably spent three, four months digging up the evidence to back up what I was saying,” Lloyd said.
Lockyer said because of the stakes involved, the authentication process can be painstaking to ensure everything is accurate.
“It’s essentially about 150 hours worth of research, on our end alone, to either confirm or refute,” she said.
Jim Busby of Winnipeg has helped identify two soldiers that were buried in unknown graves.
Maj. George David Lynch was buried in Adanac Cemetery near the Somme river in France after being killed in 1916. For almost 100 years, his gravestone identified him only as a Canadian major from the 16th Battalion.
Busby said that made for a short list of potential soldiers.
“The average infantry battalion in World War I only had five majors, so I’m thinking you got a one in five chance of knowing exactly who this guy is,” he said.
Busby worked with other researchers and determined that Lynch had actually initially been buried in a marked grave with a wooden cross listing his name.
Somehow, when the wooden crosses were replaced with marble headstones, his identity was lost.
“He laid under a marker that said he was an unknown soldier for 100 years, simply because nobody put the left hand’s information into the right hand’s file,” said Busby.
Busby said one of the things he has learned in researching grave cases like this is that many people were buried in marked graves, but reburials, headstone replacements or other things led to their identity being lost.
Another case Busby worked on was a soldier who actually returned from the war before dying in an accident and being buried in an unmarked grave.
Busby spent months trying to find out what had happened to Pte. Andrew Rosmus. He eventually found him in an unmarked plot in a cemetery in St. Boniface, Man.
“The military file had certain information, but somehow he got lost and nobody knew what happened to him,” Busby said.
He said when he presented his case to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, he was thoroughly grilled over his research. Going through records from the census, historical societies and a funeral home, he was able to make his case.
“I spent about two-and-a-half hours in front of an interview board for people,” he said. “And it reminded me of what happens when you’re presenting a doctoral thesis.”
Busby said for him the work is its own reward, but he also got to reintroduce Pte. Rosmus to his family.
He said when he first reached out to Rosmus’s descendants, they didn’t know anything about their long lost relative.
Rosmus’s new grave marker was installed in 2019. Busby was there when it was unveiled.
It included a personal inscription — something the Commonwealth Graves Commission only allows family members to do.
“Which meant that the family got together and said, ‘we want to do this,’” he said.
It reads: “Eternal rest grant him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.”