Destruction of Basra War Cemetery Revealed in FOI Disclosures

In a recent post on the facebook group "Commonwealth War Graves and Memorials in Iraq", Ben Soppitt has shared the results of a 'Freedom of Information Request' he made to the Ministry of Defence.

It turns out that the British Army took away and stored a large number of headstones from the Basra War Cemetery in southern Iraq in 2003 amid fears that they could be destroyed or vandalised by locals. In addition, panels from the memorial at Basra War Cemetery were also removed for safe storage.

The officer detailed to undertake this task (see video above) at the time said: 

 'We have collected all the gravestones together along with the tablets which have the names of all those people who died bravely during the First World War and Second World War.

'We have put them all into the back of the truck. We will take them back to our camp where we will hold them for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which will come back in the future and restore this cemetery to its former glory.'

However, within 18 months, it seems that a decision was made to deliberately destroy these headstones. 

The documents obtained by Ben following the Freedom of Information request show that the gravestones were crushed into gravel and used to build a drain inside the British Army's Shaibah Logistics Base, nine miles south-west of Basra, in April 2005.

Field Marshal The Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, the former chief of the defence staff, and who served as Assistant Chief of the General Staff at the time the gravestones were destroyed, told The Mail on Sunday:

'I am deeply saddened by what happened to this cemetery. With the benefit of hindsight there is of course no excuse. However, I have no doubt that in the dangerous and febrile environment of Basra at the time, the officers who took this decision thought they were doing the right thing.'

Details of all the CWGC cemeteries and Memorials in Iraq can be found on an article on the WFA website. A Tour of Mesopotamian War Cemeteries in 2025

Unaffected by this destruction, the Basra Memorial to the Missing is still intact and in a surprisingly good condition as detailed here on the WFA website: A photographic record of the names on the Basra Memorial