Title: Wally’s War The WW2 North African Campaign Diaries of Walter von Schramm of the NZ Graves Registration & Enquiries Unit
Description: One of the lesser-known World War II UK and Dominion Forces unit types was the Graves Registration and Enquiries Unit (GREU), or the Graves Registration Unit (GRU). These units were located behind the lines and were responsible for curating the war dead between their burial—theoretically by front line troops but not infrequently by GRUs themselves—and their concentration into permanent war cemeteries. This volume presents the wartime diaries of the Officer in Command of one such unit, the New Zealand Graves Registration and Enquiries Unit (NZGREU), during and immediately after the war's North African campaign. The diaries run from January 1941 to July 1943 and cover his journey from the UK to Egypt, his initial service in Egypt with a training battalion based at Maadi Camp outside Cairo, his service in Libya and Egypt with the NZGREU, and his return to New Zealand. Also included are a short essay on the work of GRUs in the Middle East and Africa, possibly written by him for the NZEF Times, a free newspaper produced for Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force (2NZEF) personnel, a series of excerpts from his official unit War Diary, and an unattributed and undated protocol, apparently issued to him as Officer in Command of the NZGREU, outlining the duties of a GRU. Collectively, these forgotten and till now unstudied documents provide a unique insight into both the role of, and everyday life in, a GRU during and immediately after the campaign, revealing to us their attendant routines, frustrations, dangers, stresses and—at times—disgust and horror. In this way they add significantly to our knowledge and understanding of the campaign, and also of these essential, but lesser-known units. The volume concludes with a postscript on the post war and possible future trajectory of the region's war cemeteries, including several of those on which Wally and his unit worked.
Subjects: WW2, North African Campaign, 2NZEF, Graves Registration and Enquiries Units, New Zealand history, war dead, War cemeteries, Conflict Heritage, Diary studies
Places: Africa North, Egypt, Libya, Western Desert, El Alamein
People: Walter von Schramm
Time periods: 1941–1943