Souda Bay Commonwealth War Graves

I went to Crete two weeks back, and spent an hour at the Souda (Suda) Bay cemetary, on our trip to Chania.

The pictures are here.

It is beautifully located, and very well cared for. The cemetary holds the graves of all Commonwealth personnel buried in known graves on the island, a total of over 1,500, almost one/third of them New Zealanders, who bore the brunt of the fighting on Crete, and only about half of them identified. There are also some graves from the Balkan wars, a memorial to the British soldiers killed in the Battle of Heraklion in 1898, the graves of some sailors who died in Souda of illness, and even the graves of some civilians from the period before WW1, including two or three German citizens. One of the last casualties to be interred there is a Captain from the Cretan resistance liaison mission, killed by Communist ELAS fighters in Heraklion in early 1945.

You can find the Commonwealth War Graves Commission page on the cemetery at this link.