[BITList] Red Cross Cards.

[John Feltham]

This must be the source of the story that went with the news about the  
"Red Cross Cards" that went around this week?





Mystery of thousands of 'unknown soldiers' lying in WWI graves could  
finally be resolved after astonishing discovery in Geneva cellar

By Alexandra Williams
Last updated at 5:58 PM on 13th March 2009

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: mime-attachment.jpeg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 28349 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090314/516997af/attachment-0004.jpeg 
-------------- next part --------------

War graves in France: Peter Barton's discovery could lead to thousands  
of soldiers being identified, years after they fell in battle

They are the unknown soldiers laid to rest in anonymous graves after  
dying  in the bloody battlefields and trenches of the Great War.

But the identities of tens of thousands of First World War soldiers  
buried in tombs  marked ?Unknown Soldier? or ?Known Only Unto God?  
could finally be revealed  after the discovery of a vast forgotten  
archive.

The data looks sure to provide great comfort to those thousands of  
British families who know they have a relative who died in the 'war to  
end wars', but have never been able to pinpoint the final resting  
place of their remains.

British historian Peter Barton unearthed the staggering archive,  
virtually  untouched since 1918, in the basement of the Red Cross  
headquarters in Geneva.  The international organisation knew it had a  
vast amount of information stored there, but Mr Barton is the first  
researcher to study it in detail.

The archive documents information about the death, burial and capture  
of more than 20  million soldiers from 30 countries who took part in  
the 1914-1918 war.

Carefully entered on card indexes or written into ledgers, the details  
include  name, rank, unit, time of death, exact burial location, home  
addresses  and next of kin.

Some of the records, in immaculate condition, refer to the sites of  
mass graves where the bodies of numerous soldiers were piled in  
alongside each other, rather be given an individual plot.

They give detailed directions to where they were dug - many have since  
been overgrown or built on - and include details which could lead to  
the identification of soldiers buried in them.

Mr Barton said it was the Great War?s equivalent of the discovery of  
the  Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamun.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: mime-attachment.jpeg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 48618 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090314/516997af/attachment-0005.jpeg 
-------------- next part --------------

The basement of the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva homed a long- 
forgotten archive detailing information about the death, burial and  
capture of more than 20  million soldiers from 30 countries involved  
in the First World War

He said: 'The emergence of this archive is hugely important. It will  
change the  way we look at World War One. There was great care taken  
by the Germans in not  only burying these men but also notifying the  
Red Cross.

'To a military historian it?s like finding Tutankhamun?s tomb and the  
terracotta warriors on the same day. We?re talking  about over 20  
million individual names.

'It states exactly where these men were found and where they were  
buried.

'This archive has been hidden away  - not deliberately - for 90 years.  
We historians just did  not know that this existed. The Red Cross  
tells me I am the first researcher  who has ever asked to see it.'

Mr Barton, a First World War historian and author, stumbled across the  
records  after being commissioned by the Australian government to find  
the identities of  Australian soldiers found at Pheasant Wood,  
Fromelles, France.

The trail led him to the Red Cross Museum in Geneva where he was given  
access to  their basement.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: mime-attachment.jpeg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 16530 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090314/516997af/attachment-0006.jpeg 
-------------- next part --------------

Historian Peter Barton was given access to the archive which has  
remained untouched since 1918

The records had been passed to the Red Cross by the combatant  
countries at the end of  the war. The Red Cross acted as a go-between  
for the protagonists.

Information was then copied and passed to the soldiers? home countries  
but,  according to Mr Barton, the UK?s data no longer exists, much of  
it having been  destroyed in the Second World War.  The same fate is  
believed to have befallen the records held in France and Germany.

The information has the potential to pinpoint where many of the dead  
were  buried along the Western Front and other battlefields,  and  
could mean headstones  which currently state it is the grave of an  
"unknown soldier"  will finally be engraved with a name.

It also paves the way for families to trace the history of their  
relatives who  fought in the war and died in the bitter trench fighting.

The names of the missing line the walls of memorials across France and  
Belgium,  and until now, the trails followed by new generations ended  
with family  histories still incomplete.

The fragile documents now being examined could provide the missing  
pieces of a  jigsaw, and the Red Cross is already working to bring the  
archive into the  computer age.

The organisation has set aside Swiss Francs 4 million (?2.4 million)  
to  conserve and digitise the paper records.

The project will begin in the autumn and will involve experts from  
around  Europe.

The Red Cross hopes to have the archive online by 2014, the centenary  
of World  War 1.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: mime-attachment.jpeg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 58011 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090314/516997af/attachment-0007.jpeg 
-------------- next part --------------

Red Cross workers, pictured during the war in 1917

A spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Geneva said: ?We want to archive  
these  records because it will be far easier for families to access  
the information  they require.

'They hold an incredible amount of detail.'

The careful record-keeping extended through World War Two and more  
recent  conflicts and is held in vast archives at the Red Cross in  
Geneva.

Many of Britain's original First World War records were destroyed in  
1940 by a  German bomber.

About 60 per cent of the documents relating to five million British  
soldiers  were burnt during a German raid on the War Office in  
September 1940.

All surviving records then became known as 'the burnt collection',  
while the  War Office tried to fill the gaps by calling on other  
Government departments to  donate any duplicates they had kept.

The fullest collection came from the Ministry of Pensions, which had  
collected  medical documents relating to soldiers' discharge, injuries  
and disability.

The First World War was the largest war in history with more than 70  
million  military personnel mobilized. Over 15 million people were  
killed, making it one  of the deadliest conflicts in human history.


ooroo

Bad typists of the word, untie.