‘Place of death’ should not always be taken literally. Our research is based on data from the Commonwealth War Graves Registers and the Circumstances of Death Registers, documents that give coordinates for a man’s place of death or initial burial. These coordinates are mostly an approximation. The officer who filled in the forms always did so based on an estimate, so the measurements given are not precise. Mistakes may also have been made in the noting down or copying of the information.
Furthermore, graves may have disappeared as a result of the constant shelling. Many of those described as missing had a grave but were never identified. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission estimates that roughly half of all the missing in Belgium are buried in a CWGC cemetery.
