Missing in action Memorial to the Missing of the Somme in France bears the names of 72,090 British and Commonwealth combatants, all of whom went missing in action during the Battle of the Somme, were never found and who have no known grave. Similarly, the Menin Gate memorial in Belgium commemorates 54,896 missing Allied combatants who are known to have been killed in the Ypres Salient. The Douaumont ossuary, meanwhile, contains 130,000 unidentifiable sets of French and German remains from the Battle of Verdun. Even in the 21st century, the remains of missing combatants are recovered from the former battlefields of the Western
New Zealand Division died on the Western Front. The overwhelming majority of these fatalities, around 12,400, were men from the New Zealand Division. The memorials, designed by Samuel Hurst Seager, are located at Passchendaele, Messines, Le Quesnoy and the Somme. Each memorial includes the words "From the Uttermost Ends of the Earth". In contrast to other Dominions, the names of New Zealand soldiers with no known grave, of which there are about 4,180, are not listed on the Memorials to the Missing at Menin Gate and Thiepval. Instead, it was the policy of the New Zealand government to establish smaller Memorials to the