Burial of Air Raid Casualties

The idea seems to have gained currency in some districts where there have, unhappily, been fatal air-raid casualties, that such persons are buried, more or less unceremoniously, in a public grave. That is a wrong impression altogether, and that it should exist at all is very distressing.

While it is true that the local authority for the area concerned may take charge of the funeral arrangements and may bury the casualties at the public expense where it seems desirable, the funeral is never, in any sense of the word, a pauper’s funeral.

Burial takes place in a private grave by a private undertaker and the usual form of service is observed, every endeavour being made to ascertain, first of all, the religious convictions of the deceased person or persons, the appropriate service them being used. It is well that this should be more widely understood than appears to be the case, and that such apprehensions – not altogether unnatural, perhaps – should be removed.

 

Published in the Bromley & District Times, 18th October 1940 (page 4)


 

A short news items of a funeral after the Blitz for air raid victims, 1940

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