Soldier's name secret forever

By HELEN TUNNAH


The identity of the soldier whose remains will be interred in the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior will never be revealed.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission told the Weekend Herald it would not allow DNA testing of the remains, or any other New Zealander who lies buried in France but whose identity is unknown.

Spokesman Peter Francis said governments, including New Zealand's, had agreed that their war dead should not be disturbed, including for forensic testing and irrespective of advances in science.

The only exceptions have been to return the remains of a soldier for an Unknown Warrior's tomb.

The soldier's remains, thought to include an almost-complete skeleton, were to be formally handed over to a New Zealand Government and Defence Force contingent at the village of Longueval, France, late today. It has not been revealed if anything else was found in the soldier's grave, such as uniform parts.

He - or she - will lie in state in Parliament's Legislative Council Chamber from Wednesday, before a memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral and the burial at the National War Memorial on Thursday, Armistice Day.

Security guards will remain at the tomb until it is unveiled next week, after which it will be sealed.

Although it would be technically possible to identify the New Zealander through DNA testing of any hair or bone, that will not be done.

In part, this is to preserve the symbolism of having an Unknown Warrior representing all the services and all those killed, but also to prevent what could become literally thousands of requests for remains to be exhumed across Europe.

There is also a desire to avoid the controversy caused in the United States when the identity of its "unknown warrior" from the Vietnam War was revealed, and confirmed through DNA tests.

At the request of his mother and family, he was removed from the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery and buried alongside his father.

The soldier selected by the Commonwealth commission to be returned was exhumed last month from the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery near Longueval, where thousands of soldiers killed in the Battles of the Somme in World War I are buried.

Mr Francis said the New Zealander was chosen from that cemetery because the number of unknown soldiers there was high.

Returned Services Association chief executive Pat Herbert said the symbolism of the unknown warrior would be important for those who had friends or relatives killed in the war. "It's somewhere for them to go. He represents all of those who are buried overseas.

"The remainder are never going to be brought back."

Also to be interred with the soldier will be soil from throughout New Zealand, including some from the farm of double Victoria Cross winner Charles Upham.

The RSA will also next week present the unknown warrior with its highest honour, the Badge in Gold.

War dead

More than 30,000 New Zealand servicemen and women have been killed since the Boer War.

27,000 of them are buried overseas.

About 9000 New Zealanders have no known grave or have been buried but not identified.