A photographic record of the names on the Basra Memorial
The Basra Memorial is unlikely to be visited by many Great War enthusiasts, and as such the names recorded on its panels have been more or less unviewable for many decades.
The memorial commemorates 40,682 Commonwealth forces members who died during the Mesopotamian Campaign.
Located - when it was first constructed in the 1920's - near the Shatt al-Arab River, it was moved to its present location in 1997 by the regime of Saddam Hussain. That it survived at all is really quite surprising.
In 2025 Ben Soppitt undertook a visit to all the CWGC memorials in Iraq, the details of this are recorded elsewhere on the WFA's website.
We are very grateful to Ben for photographing the panels on the Basra Memorial which can be viewed via the link below.
The images here are a combination of those taken by Ben and copies of the names on the panels taken from the original architect's design (courtesy of the CWGC website).
In most cases, the architect panel images have been located; any missing ones will hopefully be located soon and added. Where these are missing, an 'adjacent' image has been annotated to indicate a missing panel.
The image numbers correspond to the panel numbers, so for instance, we have 5.jpg; 5A.jpeg, 5B.jpeg and 5C.jpeg. Those images suffixed A, B, and C are the panel lists that name the men in the original design.
Below is a 'walk through' of the memorial showing the panels from number 1 to 69.
It should be noted that panels 61 and 62 are no longer attached to the walls of the memorial, panels 67 and 68 are only semi-intact and that the top of panel 25 is in the position that where the top of panel 50 should be located (and vice-versa).
The panels contain the names of some 7,385 British personnel (including white colonial troops from New Zealand and Australia) as well as Indian Army officers. The missing Indian troops are regrettably not named on the panels. The Indian Army listing starts at panel 44.
From panel 60 onwards are named those men who died in captivity.
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