A volunteer group which maintains the graves of military veterans is calling for the establishment of a government-funded body to do the work.
Members of the New Plymouth Boys High School 1st and 2nd cricket XI work on some of the war graves in Te Henui cemetery New Plymouth.
Photo: Supplied / Remembrance Army
The graves of veterans buried in service sections of public cemeteries are maintained by Veterans Affairs and those who died on active service are looked after by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission through the Ministry of Culture and Heritage.
But about another 155,000 veterans buried in cemeteries or family plots are not covered.
Navy lieutenant discovers family link while helping clean Auckland war graves stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
They scoop up debris and wipe what they can, restoring graves covered in dirt, leaves and cracks.
Remembrance Army CEO Simon Strombom says many graves are well overdue for a cleanup. A lot of them in the 1920s or 1930s have no paint on them so they ve never been touched in 100 years.
Despite the work they do, getting into public cemeteries can be a challenge for the Remembrance Army.
Some councils require permission from families of the dead before grave sites can be restored or cleaned.
That permission is often hard to get - so they want a War Graves Commission established to make the estimated 200,000 graves more accessible.
NZ Remembrance Army cleans Whanganui service graves
1 Mar, 2021 04:00 PM
3 minutes to read
Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chroniclemichael.tweed@nzme.co.nzWhangaChron
One hundred graves of New Zealand service personnel buried in Whanganui were cleaned up over the weekend, thanks to the efforts of the New Zealand Remembrance Army and volunteers from the 5th Wellington, West Coast, and Taranaki Battalion (5WWCT).
The Battalion volunteers were in town to take part in a reunion.
Founded in 2019 by Simon Strombom, the New Zealand Remembrance Army has now cleaned close to 12,000 graves around the country, with 3,500 volunteers lending 14,000 hours of their time so far.