With today’s technology it is easy for people to plan a trip to a far off place, using the internet flights, hotels and car hire can be booked – all from the comfort of their home and then go and enjoy the experience, be it on holiday or business. However, spare a thought for those planning to visit the grave of a family member who fell during service to their country. The daunting task of planning a specific journey to pay their respects, arranging specialist travel for the elderly, identifying and confirming a location, organising the transport – it can seem an insurmountable problem and one wrought with emotion.

Mindful of this and with the belief that ALL the graves and memorials to war dead, particularly those of the Commonwealth should be recorded for posterity, The War Graves Photographic Project (TWGPP) have undertaken the immense task of recording and archiving images of gravestones and memorials of every service casualty since the outbreak of the First World War.
Working in tandem with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), this will afford families, researchers and scholars’ access, via the CWGC or TWGPP websites, to photographic data of a grave or memorial, which for a great many it is impossible to visit in person. This facility has only been made possible through the efforts of a dedicated group of volunteers, who feel the need to remember those that made the ultimate sacrifice and who, recognise the importance for families to see where their loved ones are laid to rest or commemorated, emulating the CWGC ethos to ‘Remember in Perpetuity’

So far, project volunteers have managed to photograph over 1.1 million gravestones and commemorative listings throughout the world. The majority of these being in France and Belgium but including more obscure places like Cape Verde Islands and Churkin Russian Naval cemetery at Vladivostok.

With a target of over 1.75 million graves to photograph TWGPP is always looking for willing volunteers. So if you find yourself driving past a field in France or on some far off Mediterranean island and you spot a sign ‘British Cemetery’ please consider stopping and helping a worthwhile cause.

For more information on how you can contribute to the project visit www.twgpp.org or email steve@twgp