My uncle, Private Richard Wood (left), did not survive the onslaught on June 2, 1916. He has no cemetery plot in the Menin Gate (Ypres) Memorial Cemetery, indicating that his mortally wounded body disappeared into the slime and mud of Sanctuary Wood, either never to be recovered or, if it was recovered, never to be identified. He exists only as a name carved in stone in a section of the memorial, which states –

HERE ARE RECORDED NAMES OF OFFICERS AND MEN WHO FELL IN YPRES SALIENT BUT TO WHOM THE FORTUNE OF WAR DENIED THE KNOWN AND HONOURED BURIAL GIVEN TO THEIR COMRADES IN DEATH

McBride:

“I had found a number of bodies, which I examined for identification discs or other marks and made a complete record for headquarters. If this were not done, many would be reported as ‘missing’, which is, to relatives, far more terrible than the knowledge that death has been swift and sure. If the body is buried in the field, the best way is to write the information on a piece of paper, place it in a bottle, neck- down, in the top of the grave.”