Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC):
The United Kingdom-based Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has listed five sites with unusual features. These sites are associated with World War I and World War II.
- Among them is Nagaland’s Kohima War Cemetery.
- The Kohima War Cemetery is a memorial dedicated to the soldiers of the 2nd British Division of the Allied Forces who died in World War II at Kohima in April 1944.
- The soldiers died on the battleground of Garrison Hill in the tennis court area of the Deputy Commissioner’s residence.
- Among the other unusual sites listed by CWGC are the World War I “crater cemeteries” – Zivy Crater and Litchfield Crater – in the Pas de Calais region in France. The craters were caused by mine explosions.
- Another site listed is the Nicosia (Waynes Keep) Cemetery or the “cemetery in no man’s land” in Cyprus, requiring the presence of armed guards.
- This is because the cemetery is on the border of a patch of land disputed between the southern and northern parts of the island since the 1970s.
- CWGC is an intergovernmental organisation of six member-states who ensure the men and women who died in the wars will never be forgotten.
- The commission was founded by Sir Fabian Ware and constituted through Royal Charter in 1917 as the Imperial War Graves Commission.
- Membership: Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
