One man’s campaign for Commonwealth war graves restoration in Iraq
This Remembrance Sunday, Ben Soppitt will honor his grandfather’s sacrifice at the military cemetery in Basra, Iraq. He will be among the very few, honoring many.
His small service will contrast sharply with the large and solemn ceremony at the Cenotaph in London. Iraq’s monuments also bear no resemblance to the carefully tended war memorials and impeccably kept cemeteries across Europe.
Ben Soppitt says the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has “failed catastrophically” in its duty to honor the dead in Iraq. According to him, this “shames the men and women who gave their lives in Iraq”.
More than 50,000 soldiers from the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries lost their lives in Iraq during the two world wars. Most were casualties of the Mesopotamian campaign during World War I, when British and Commonwealth troops fought the Ottoman Empire. And most of those killed were Indian nationals.
Ben Soppitt’s grandfather, Gunner Joseph Soppitt, is among those buried at the Basra War Cemetery. He died in 1941 of dysentery when British forces briefly fought there during World War II. His grave – like that of the nearly 3,000 men buried there – bears no official marking. Others buried there include Victoria Cross recipient George Wheeler and actress Charlotte Rampling’s grandfather, Sapper Harris Johnson Rampling.
Ben Soppitt’s grandfather, Gunner Joseph Soppitt, is among those buried at the Basra Military Cemetery. [Ben Soppitt]
The Commonwealth War Grave Commission cleared the site of all headstones after many of them were vandalized or fell into disrepair. There is a long-term plan to replace them, but the CWGC withdrew from Iraq in the 1990s for security reasons. Since then, the Basra military cemetery has become a desert wasteland, used by locals to play football or to dispose of waste. Basra is not alone. There are more than a dozen such sites across the country.
Some sites withstood the heat and dust of Iraq better than others. Basra’s giant war memorial, the third largest in the world, is still largely intact. It commemorates more than 40,000 soldiers. 7,385 people are named individually on the panels – all British personnel and Indian officers. But the 3,256 Indian nationals who served in the ranks are only listed by unit and number.
Basra military cemetery has become a deserted wasteland where children play football [Ben Soppitt]
CWGC promised to address this “inequality in commemoration”, which favored British nationals. Ben Soppit asserts that “this historic wrong cannot be corrected without addressing Indian losses in Iraq.” He says this is another compelling reason why he should resume his work there.
Over the past two weeks, Ben Soppitt has visited most of the CWGC sites in Iraq to honor the dead – but also to highlight what he sees as Britain’s failure to do the same. He documented what he saw on social media.
He found that the CWGC site in Mosul was in a similar condition to that in Basra.
“All that remains are the memorial bases and a few stones,” he wrote online. “If my opinion of the CWGC was low before it reached a new depth.”
Over the past two weeks, Ben Soppitt has visited most of CWGC’s sites in Iraq [Ben Soppitt]
The Commonwealth War Grave Commission says it has detailed plans in place to restore its sites in Iraq. He says he has already carried out some renovation work but adds that “determining the right time to undertake a complete restoration is a complex judgment”. One of the main decisions, he says, is safety and security in the region. It follows advice from the UK Foreign Office for Iraq, which currently advises against all travel to the country. It claims to keep the public informed of its work on its website.
But there is clearly frustration with the pace of progress. Baroness Emma Nicholson also highlighted the state of the CWGC sites in Basra during one of her visits in 2007. She said she understood that as a government agency the CWGC must take into account travel advice from the Foreign Office. But she adds that they “need to do more.”
For Ben Soppitt and his family, the campaign for the CWGC to do more is deeply personal. He had hoped to visit his grandfather’s grave site in Basra with his own father. But he is now deceased.
“I have no intention of passing this on to my own sons,” Ben says. “So I do everything I can to ensure that these men and women are properly commemorated before I too die.”
