Dear Rutht22000,
Please see following article on the Habbaniya British Cemetry where your gradfather might have been burried in Iraq:
Restoration of the Habbaniya cemetery, which contains the remains of soldiers of the Allied forces in Iraq during the years of World War II
October 1, 2019
About two hundred damaged graves were restored in the Habbaniya cemetery, located in western Iraq, which contains the remains of British and Allied soldiers during World War II or those who died in Iraq after it.
About 173 soldiers who were serving in the Allied Forces during World War II were buried in the cemetery, located 97 kilometers west of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
The cemetery also contains the remains of 117 other people who died in events not related to the World War in the late 1940s and 1950s, including 24 people who were killed in a Royal Jordanian Air Force plane crash in the area in 1957.
The condition of the graves gradually deteriorated and deteriorated over time due to the high level of salinity in the ground, and many of the gravestones and stone buildings that were not properly cared for were destroyed.
It was not easy to reach the cemetery and take care of it, as the lack of political stability in Iraq since the start of the Gulf War in 1990 prevented the staff of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) from reaching the place and continuing to maintain and care for the cemetery.
Concerns about safety and security led the committee to suspend its work in the country for several decades, except for short periods when restorations were possible. However, following the recent improvement in the security situation, stone masons and stele sculptors at the committee's base of operations in Bouran, France, manufactured approximately 300 stele from white Portland stone to be transported to Iraq. Local contractors began working on the site last March, and have now completed installing all the stone headstones in the cemetery.
The cemetery also contains the remains of soldiers who fell because of the intervention of British forces following the coup attempt that took place in Iraq in 1941, known as the coup of Rashid Ali al-Kilani, who was installed by the coup plotters, led by four officers with a nationalist tendency in the Iraqi army as prime minister.
This attempt was not far from the polarizations that resulted from World War II between the camps of the Allies and the Axis powers, as the coup plotters received support from Nazi Germany and the Axis powers at the time.
The coup was the result of a constitutional crisis that occurred as a result of the overthrow of multiple Iraqi governments after the conflict within the Iraqi p..iament between the liberal movement close to Britain, which supports implementing the terms of the 1930 agreement and Iraq’s obligations under it to support Britain and the allies in the war, and the position of the nationalist movement that rejects that and calls for keeping Iraq out of the war and canceling the treaty itself later. This crisis led to the overthrow of a number of Iraqi ministries that were formed within a short period, including the pro-British ministry of Nouri Al-Saeed, the ministry of Al-Kilani himself, and then the ministry of Lieutenant General Taha Al-Hashemi, who was forced by the intervention of the army to resign and Al-Kilani was installed in his place, which prompted the regent to The throne in Iraq, Abdul Ilah and the former Prime Minister and close associate of Britain, Nuri al-Saeed, had to flee.
At that time, Britain considered that army forces besieging its base in Habbaniya and violating the terms of the 1930 treaty amounted to a declaration of war, and its forces intervened militarily to restore the regent.
After the coup failed and Al-Kilani fled to Italy and later to Germany, a new ministry was formed headed by Jamil Al-Madfai, which did not last long, as Al-Saeed returned four months later to head the ministry again.
The Habbaniya Cemetery website indicates that the cemetery contains the remains of about 60 soldiers who were killed in the battles that followed the May 1941 coup.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission cares for some 23,000 memorial sites and cemeteries around the world, helping to commemorate the 1.7 million Commonwealth war dead. Iraq comes in fifth place in the commitments of this committee, as it includes the remains of 51,000 of those who fell in World War I and three thousand in the years of World War II and after it.
