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On 4 September
2003, British troops from 19 Mechanised Brigade began work
to restore a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in
Basrah, which had suffered years of neglect and deliberate
desecration under Saddam Hussein's regime. Hundreds of headstones
have been destroyed and many others damaged. The soldiers,
including troops from the 1st Battalion The Queen's Lancashire
Regiment, based only a few hundred yards away, began the task
of salvaging the surviving headstones for safe storage until
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission can undertake a comprehensive
reconstruction.
At Al
Kut, US troops discovered a badly overgrown British war cemetery,
the last resting place of several hundred British and Empire
troops who fell during the Mesopotamian campaign in the First
World War. Al Kut was the scene of much heavy fighting, including
both a disastrous British defeat in 1916, and an important
victory in February 1917. On 8 May 2003, British and US personnel
joined in a service of reconsecration, led by the Church of
England Bishop to the Forces, The Right Reverend David Conner,
Dean of Windsor.
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