All the 258 graves of Commonwealth soldiers who died fighting during World War I and were buried in the city have now been restored.
Work will now start on the remaining 476 graves across the state. The restoration work comes as part of the worldwide mission of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) to honour soldiers of the Commonwealth who died in World War I. The CWGCKirkee War Cemetery has been given the responsibility to restore graves of these soldiers across Maharashtra.
"The (Khadki) Kirkee War Cemetery was created to receive World War II graves from the western and central parts of India where their permanent maintenance could not be assured. The cemetery contains 1,668 Commonwealth burials of WW-II. The Kirkee Memorial stands within the cemetery and commemorates more than 1,800 servicemen who died in India during the WW-I between 1914-1918, who are buried in civil and cantonment cemeteries in India and Pakistan where their graves can no longer be properly maintained.
"Now we have begun work on restoring the WW-I graves in Maharashtra," CWGC-Kirkee War Cemetery Manager M S Bahanwal told Sakaal Times.
From army records, 476 WWI graves across the state were identified. Pune had the maximum number of graves, 258 of them. Of these 144 were in St Sepulcher Cemetery on Solapur Road and 114 in the graveyard in High Explosives Factory, Khadki. The other graves are the 168 at Deolali Camp in Nashik, Ahmednagar 44, two in Purandar's Sambhaji Fort, Parbhani two, Alibaug one and Bombay Service Cemetery one. "Restoration work is complete in Pune. We will now start work in Nashik followed by other places starting with Ahmednagar. In St Sepulcher Cemetery, Assistant Garden Superintendent, PMC A D Ghorpade and Pune Christian Cemeteries Societies, Solapur Road extended full cooperation for the restoration of 144 WW-I graves without the removal of a single tree," he said. The CWGC-Kirkee Cemetery manager added that while the restoration work was on, efforts were made to save the trees by adjusting the graves. Thus 55 trees were saved from cutting.
Established by Royal Charter in 1917, the Commission pays tribute to the 17,00,000 men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died fighting in the two world wars. It is a non-profit-making organisation that was founded by Sir Fabian Ware. The cost is shared by the partner governments - Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and United Kingdom. "Since its inception, the Commission has constructed 2,500 war cemeteries and plots, erecting headstones over graves and, in instances where the remains are missing, inscribing the names of the dead on permanent memorials. Over one million casualties are now commemorated at military and civil sites in some 150 countries," Bahanwal said.
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