The Imperial War Graves Commission, (now called the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) was established in 1917 to maintain the cemeteries and record the Commonwealth dead of the Great War (and later the Second World War). Its mission was threefold: 1. To ensure that the name of each serviceman who died in the war, or during the immediate postwar period, would be commemorated on a headstone or engraved on a battlefield memorial. 2. To ensure that all soldiers would receive universal treatment in death. 3. To ensure that no bodies would be repatriated; all would remain in the country in which they died.
	Canadian National Memorial, Vimy Ridge
	Seventy percent of the men who died at Vimy have a known grave. The balance - the unidentified or those whose remains have yet to be found - are commemorated here along with 11,285 other Canadian soldiers who died in France and have no known graves. Standing atop what was once termed Hill 145, this memorial is surrounded by the Canadian Memorial Park, 250 hectares of dilapidated trenches, shell holes and mine craters. Designed by Toronto sculptor Walter Allward, the Vimy Memorial was erected by the people of Canada and unveiled on July 26,1936. Also visible from the park where it stands, is the 44th Battalion (Manitoba) Memorial near the Pimple, the 3rd Division Memorial in La Folie Wood and the 1st Division Memorial near Thelus.