World War I & World War 2 Cemeteries Overseas

More than 90,000 Australians left home never to return from WW1 and WW2. They now rest in over 80 countries around the world.

Those whose remains were able to be identified lie in marked graves in close to 800 cemeteries overseas [1]. The graves range from single plots or groups in civil cemeteries, to rows of over a thousand in Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) war cemeteries near the sites of the most bloody battles and tragedies.

Every Australian war grave is and always will be cared for by an eternally grateful nation [2].

From Tyne Cot Cemetery near Passchendaele on what was once the Western Front, where so many young Australians fell, to Labuan and Kranji War Cemeteries where the emaciated remains of POWs were finally laid to rest, these cemeteries tell the great tragedy of war.

Overseas cemeteries with more than 200 Australian war dead

If any resting places under heaven are made beautiful by men's hands, these will be, upon which the whole affection of the Empire will lavish its care.
Where the Australians Rest, Department of Defence, Melbourne, 1920.

Lone Pine Cemetery, Gallipoli, Turkey

Queant Road Cemetery, Buissy, France

Kranji War Cemetery, Singapore

Adelaide Cemetery, Villers-Bretonneux, France, 26 August 1919. French children tend the graves of Australians killed on the Western Front.
[AWM E05925]

See

Footnotes

Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has established war graves for members of the Commonwealth forces at 23,000 burial grounds in 150 countries.
The responsibility of maintaining Australian war graves from WW1 and WW2 is divided between CWGC and Office of Australian War Graves (OAWG) as its agent. Australia, as a member government, contributes to CWGC in proportion to the number of its war dead, 6.05%. Back to text