War Diaries Talk

New WWI casualties in 2014

  • Memento_Mori by Memento_Mori

    New WWI casualties in 2014 I am curious if these people would be classified as WWI casualties.

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  • charcinders by charcinders

    Well they are certainly victims of WW1, the poor guys.

    It's astounding that the explosives are still lethal after 100 years in the ground.

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  • David_Underdown by David_Underdown moderator

    I think I've seen elsewhere that Belgium pays compensation to victims under laws originally introduced during the war for civilian casualties, so in a sense, yes.

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator in response to Memento Mori's comment.

    Thanks for posting this MM. I'm sure many of us have seen the comments that French and Belgian farmers still dig up "the harvest of iron" every year when they plough the fields and also seen the photos of stacks of old rusty shells at the side of the road waiting for disposal. I wonder why these workmen were trying to dig up this shell rather than simply calling in the Army though? Very sad indeed.

    BY the way Wikipedia says "In just the area around Ypres, 260 people have been killed and 535 have been injured by unexploded munitions since the end of the First World War." which is a staggering number.

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