Basra Memorial
Basra, Iraq
The Basra Memorial is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission war memorial near Zubayr, Iraq. The memorial commemorates 40,682 Commonwealth forces members who died during the Mesopotamian Campaign, from the Autumn of 1914 to the end of August 1921, and whose graves are not known. The memorial was designed by Edward Prioleau Warren. It was unveiled by Gilbert Clayton on 27 March 1929. Originally located eight kilometers north of Basra, near the Shatt al-Arab River, it was moved southwest in 1997 to a battleground from the much more recent Gulf War. The memorial has not been maintained for over 30 years but remains in reasonably good condition with only 8 of the 68 panels damaged or delaminated from the wall. Of the 40,682 only 7,385 British personnel (including white colonial troops from New Zealand and Australia) and Indian Officers are mentioned by name with 33,256 Indian NCO and other ranks only listed by unit and total casualties.
Monument data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).