The search for missing soldiers is intensifying a century after the First World War. Three Canadian soldiers from the First World War were buried with pomp in northern France: “a day full of emotions” for the family of Sergeant Richard Musgrave, while such finds are becoming more frequent, writes AFP.

In recent years, more and more soldiers who went missing during the First World War have been found thanks to large-scale projects and better organization of the services responsible for finding their remains.

“We knew he was killed,” but “having a place to pray is something else,” said Gordon Gilfeather, 77, the grandson of Sergeant Musgrave of the 7th Canadian Infantry Battalion, who was killed at age 32. “It’s an emotional day.”

Another grandson, 83-year-old James Musgrave Colteman, named after the missing man, recalls a picture of him “hanging in my grandmother’s living room, his only sister.” “It’s extraordinary. It’s just a pity that our grandmother is no longer there.”

Sgt Musgrave, who was found in 2017 near Lens (Pas-de-Calais), was buried on Thursday with full military honors at the nearby Loos-en-Goel British Cemetery, along with two comrades found next to him: Harry Atherton, aged 24 years and Corporal Percy Howarth, 23.

600,000 soldiers are still missing

Born in Great Britain, all three emigrated to Canada, where they worked as sailors, carpenters and drivers before enlisting and being posted to Europe.

They died on the first day of the fierce Battle of Cote 70, in which more than 10,000 Canadians were killed or wounded between August 15 and 25, 1917, in an attempt to recapture the strategic mining town of Lens.

At least 600,000 men who died fighting in northern France during the First World War are still missing, including 100,000 from the former British colony.

For a long time, the bones, which were periodically found between Belgium and Paris, were secretly evacuated.

“When the first large infrastructures were built, there was no exhumation protocol,” explains Alain Jacques, director of the Arras archaeological service, one of the first proponents of systematic excavation during this period.

“Back then, builders or farmers were reluctant to report bodies found, fearing it would block their work.”

According to him, the discoveries are now accelerating “because construction sites systematically call out pyrotechnicians, ex-servicemen are often sensitive to these remains, and because of the existence of specialized response services.”