Battersea Rise Cemetery, London

The Battersea Rise Cemetery in the London Borough of Wandsworth is more than a plot of land with old gravestones.

About 1,700,000 men and women of the Commonwealth forces died in 154 countries during World War I and II, and are interred in cemeteries across the Commonwealth countries. The Battersea Rise Cemetery has 18 Commonwealth war graves.

Fifteen graves are those of servicemen killed in World War 1 (died 1915-1919) and three graves are of servicemen killed in World War II (died 1944-1947). Most of the deaths were in 1918, with 7 of the 18 graves (39%), followed by 1919, with four deaths (22%).

Of the 18, the average age of those killed in WWI was 23 years (although the ages of four men are unknown), and the average age of those killed in WWII was 35 years.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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