CHARLES KONG SOO

The Lon­don-based Com­mon­wealth War Graves Com­mis­sion says as part of its mis­sion it in­tends to give new life to the sto­ries of those who served and died dur­ing the two World Wars.

Pe­ter Fran­cis, spokesper­son for the Com­mis­sion said: “One of the things the com­mis­sion is de­ter­mined to do is to en­gage the next gen­er­a­tion on the im­por­tance of on­go­ing re­mem­brance and the sto­ries of those who served.”

“Too of­ten peo­ple for­get that the two World Wars were glob­al wars and the con­tri­bu­tion and sac­ri­fice made by the men and women of the Caribbean must al­so be re­mem­bered.

“We have just launched a Foun­da­tion to en­cour­age the pub­lic to find and tell the sto­ries of those who served, to put a hu­man face to the names en­graved on our war memo­ri­als, so that our next gen­er­a­tion can bet­ter un­der­stand the im­pact of the war on our com­mu­ni­ties,” he said.

The Com­mis­sion ho­n­ours the 1.7 mil­lion men and women of the Com­mon­wealth forces who died in the First and Sec­ond World Wars and en­sures they will nev­er be for­got­ten.

The com­mis­sion’s work com­mem­o­rates the war dead, from build­ing and main­tain­ing its ceme­ter­ies and memo­ri­als at 23,000 lo­ca­tions in more than 150 coun­tries to the preser­va­tion of its ex­ten­sive records and archives.

Since its es­tab­lish­ment by Roy­al Char­ter, the com­mis­sion had con­struct­ed 2,500 war ceme­ter­ies and plots, erect­ed head­stones over graves and where the re­mains were miss­ing, in­scribed the names of the dead on per­ma­nent memo­ri­als. More than a mil­lion buri­als are now com­mem­o­rat­ed at mil­i­tary and civ­il sites in some 150 coun­tries.

In Trinidad, the St James Mil­i­tary Ceme­tery, at Long Cir­cu­lar Road, is main­tained by the De­fence Force.

The ceno­taph at Memo­r­i­al Park falls with­in the am­bit of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion.

The late Jus­tice Ul­ric Cross, who was a Roy­al Air Force nav­i­ga­tor chose Memo­r­i­al Park for his fi­nal farewell and memo­r­i­al ser­vice on Oc­to­ber 11, 2013, recog­nis­ing that the ceno­taph and the park it­self ho­n­oured peo­ple like him­self who served and died in World Wars I and II.

Re­tired Chief of De­fence Staff (CDS), Ma­jor Gen­er­al Rod­ney Smart said since the TTDF was formed, it was not on­ly a tra­di­tion but the du­ty of one of the of­fi­cers in the De­fence Force to be ap­point­ed Of­fi­cer in Charge (OIC) of war graves.

He said fam­i­lies went to the ceme­tery and lit can­dles for All Souls and All Saints for the war dead.