WWI soldiers buried in unmarked graves could be identified, says historian
The families of millions of soldiers buried in unmarked graves in the First World War could be able to locate their relative's burial place after the British historian Peter Barton found a vast untapped archive in Geneva, Switzerland.
Mr Barton said it was the conflict's equivalent of the discovery of the tomb of the Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamen.
He unearthed the archive hidden deep under the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva, where shelf after shelf of boxed, typed records had lain untouched by researchers for decades.
The information has the potential to show where many of the dead were laid to rest all along the Western Front and other battlefields of the Great War and could mean that many of the headstones marked "Unknown Soldier" or "Known Only Unto God" might be changed.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
Mr Barton said it was the conflict's equivalent of the discovery of the tomb of the Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamen.
He unearthed the archive hidden deep under the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva, where shelf after shelf of boxed, typed records had lain untouched by researchers for decades.
The information has the potential to show where many of the dead were laid to rest all along the Western Front and other battlefields of the Great War and could mean that many of the headstones marked "Unknown Soldier" or "Known Only Unto God" might be changed.