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
Pozières Memorial and incorporating a Cross of Sacrifice. The names of the missing are inscribed on the panels, arranged by regiment or other unit. The fourth side of the cemetery, on the road frontage, is formed by an open arcade, with the entrance archway at its centre: the inscription is over this. The memorial was unveiled on 4 August 1930 by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, who had served as a general commanding the British II Corps and the British Second Army during the war. The memorial encloses a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, in which 2,758 Commonwealth servicemen are either buried or commemorated.