Except the Yanks of course. No one is left behind. I just love their moving policy.
I saw it in action some 15 years ago in PNG. A Star lifter landed and out rolled a contingent of vehicles to recover a pilot that had just been found from WWII. Some hours latter I saw them drive back in and take off.
Oh yes 72 Years, the last ANZAC day I attended there two years ago. There were five veterans, one was a relative of a mate. Not many left now.
Bye the way, did you know the war graves are paid for their upkeep in perpetuity by the Australian Government. As is the museum.
ANZAC centenary next year. Kanchantaburi will be buzzing.
My favourite is at Chung Chai, a pleasant long-tailed boat trip out to this beautiful memorial.
Don't want to turn this into a pissing contest, and I am happy to stand corrected, but I thought the Commonwealth War Graves Commission was responsible for the memorials and the CWGC is funded as follows:-
<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="8"><tbody><tr><td>
Governments </td> <td>
Percentage Contribution</td> </tr> <tr> <td>United Kingdom</td> <td>78.43</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Canada</td> <td>10.07</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Australia</td> <td>6.05</td> </tr> <tr> <td>New Zealand</td> <td>2.14</td> </tr> <tr> <td>South Africa</td> <td>2.11</td> </tr> <tr> <td>India</td> <td>1.20</td></tr></tbody></table>
The statistic that shocked me was the 90,000 Asians who lost their lives.
Forced labour was used in its construction. About 180,000 Asian civilian labourers (mainly
romusha) and 60,000
Allied prisoners of war (POWs) worked on the railway. Of these, around 90,000 Asian civilian labourers and 12,399 Allied POWs died as a direct result of the project. The dead POWs included 6,318
British personnel, 2,815
Australians, 2,490 Dutch, about 356 Americans, and about 20 POWs from other
British Commonwealth countries