| Content Note | Topics covered:
Peerage for the Rt Hon Sir Patrick Spens
The Chairman announced that the Right Honourable Patrick Spens had been created a Baron in the Birthday Honours.
Matters arising from the Minutes of the 425th Meeting
Preparations for the unveiling of the Ottawa Memorial; the unveiling of the Royal New Zealand Naval Memorial; modification of the Commission’s title.
Report of the 471st Meeting of the Finance Committee
Maintenance work at Villers Bretonneux Military Cemetery and Australian National Memorial under the contract with Entreprise Reynes; appointment of a Gardener to the Permanent Maintenance Staff; expenditure on the publication of Part 3 of Volume IV of “Their Name Liveth”; appointment of Major Row as Works Officer; payment by the Commission to the Trustees of the 1952 Superannuation Scheme.
Commonwealth-Foreign Joint Committees
Appointment of Mr F. H. A. de Graaff, Chairman of the Netherlands Red Cross, as Netherlands Official Member of the Commonwealth-Netherlands Joint Committee; appointment of Mr R. T. Higgins, Second Secretary at the British Embassy in Copenhagen, as Commonwealth Member of the Commonwealth-Danish Joint Committee.
Unmaintainable Graves in the United Kingdom - Shankill Cemetery, Belfast, Co. Antrim
Approval for the proposed removal of headstones from five Commonwealth war graves in Shankill Cemetery, Belfast, and commemoration of the seven casualties buried therein on a special memorial in Belfast City Cemetery.
Unmaintainable graves in Tanganyika
Arrangements for the removal of fourteen headstones marking isolated First World War graves in Tanganyika and, where possible, re-erected in a war cemetery or plot near the original location of the grave with explanatory inscription.
Kaduna African Christian Cemetery
Arrangements regarding the commemoration of 86 African servicemen buried in Kaduna African Christian Cemetery.
Sale of Area Offices, Northern Region
Authorisation for Brigadier Croxton Sillery Vale, Regional Director, Northern Region, to complete the sale of the former premises of the Netherlands and Germany Area offices.
General Notes
Details of the South African Pilgrimage, which included visits to the Runnymede Memorial, Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial and Tyne Cot Memorial, as well as a Pilgrimage organised by the British Legion to Tunisia and Italy; account of visit by the Secretary to Commonwealth war graves at New York, Washington, Boston and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and attendance at the unveiling of the Ottawa Memorial; announcement that Mr R. Hobday, the Commission’s Senior Architect, was appointed an OBE and that Mr F. W. Vass, Head Gardener in France, was awarded the BEM; details of the broadcast of a television play about a Commission Gardener titled “Foreign Field”; account of D Day commemoration ceremonies held by the Airborne Forces Security Fund in Normandy with specific reference the one held at Ranville War Cemetery; 40th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgraberfursorge (German War Graves Organisation); report on the Commission’s ability to carry out maintenance work in Indonesia.
ATTENDEES:
General Sir John Crocker GCB KBE DSO MC (Vice-Chairman of the Commission)
Major-General R. W. Knights OBE (Representing the High Commissioner for Australia)
M. Hillebrand (Representing the High Commissioner for South Africa)
Major E. K. Hari Krishna (Representing the High Commissioner for India)
S. H. Field (Representing the Secretary of State for the Colonies)
A. J. Isaac (Representing the Minister of Works)
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore GCB DSO
The Right Hon. Sir Patrick Spens KBE GC MP
Air Marshal Sir Charles Guest KBE CB
G. O. Sylvester MP
John Hogg TD
SECRETARY
W. J. Chalmers CBE
ADVISER
H. D. Morgan MSc MICE (Consulting Engineer)
Also in attendance:
W. Wynne Mason MC (Assistant Secretary (External Relations))
A. K. Pallot (Assistant Secretary (Finance and Establishments))
H. L. Simmons LLB (Legal Adviser)
Brigadier N. E. V. Patterson OBE (Principal Deputy Director of Works)
P. J. Cook |