GREAT War fallen tribute website Wiltshire Soldiers has announced it has uploaded 5,000 identified photographs of soldiers who died in or as a result of serving in the conflict.

The site, which was launched in 2010, and enables users to search for free for details of the Great War fallen from their local communitiesis. A unique site, it covers the county of Wiltshire from where 10,000 war dead can be searched for by name, war memorial, town, regiment or village.

The sites’ founder Richard Broadhead said: "This is not just about the lists of names on war memorials, it is much much more; we include and provide details of men who are associated with the towns and villages and not just those who were born there.

"This has increased the number and knowledge of the war dead for all communities across Wiltshire. 

"Each casualty has been thoroughly researched and in about 95% of cases we can now establish who the next of kin were for each service personnel covered. In many cases such information has been lacking on other sites such as the Commonwealth War Graves."

Soldiers, sailors and airmen are commemorated along with nurses, merchant seamen and civilians whose death was caused by the Great War. The site has international connections and covers men from Commonwealth countries and other countries such as United States and Russia.

Such men had either emigrated from Wiltshire and joined other Countries forces or died in Wiltshire while in training; this works to dispel the myth that the majority of foreign soldiers
buried in Wiltshire died as a result of the flu pandemic rather than military service.

Mr Broadhead added: "I have assembled a huge archive containing personal information, service records, photographs and book references which in many cases have brought together the story of a person’s life into one location for the first time.

"Researchers understand better than anyone how difficult it has been in the past to locate documents for individual casualties, often being told that no information exists.

"I can now give a good indication of what documents are available but you have to be prepared to undertake the research with dogged determination.

"I would like to get to the stage where I can confidently state that all the documents that are available have been located and included within my research and the resultant single depository of information is complete, but because I receive no public funding I have no idea when this will be the case as we can only update the site when finance is available.

"I have periods when I am literally swamped with enquires and people sending list of names with requests for further information.

"When I launched the site I did not realise it would be so popular and we now have thousands of users not just from Wiltshire but nationally and internationally from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and Europe.

"If you have an outstanding enquiry please be patient and we will get back to you but my resources are extremely limited. 

"While undertaking my research I have continually discovered a large number of men and women who are not commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

"I remain committed for this travesty to be addressed and continue to campaign for them to be included on the nations roll of honour.

"Increasingly people visit war cemeteries around the world now as part of their pursuit to remember the fallen and another service now available on the web site is the ability to identify the location of an individual’s grave in a cemetery or the panel location of their name on a war memorial to the missing.

"The added bonus is that if a photo is available you can then stand next to a soldiers grave or memorial and view his picture. This really brings the history to life and serves to remind us that these grave markers and memorials represent real people from our communities.

"Of course this service isn’t just limited to overseas cemeteries and memorials but also applies to war grave and memorials in Wiltshire.”

In addition to adding photographs the latest update to the website has increased the number of those commemorated to over 22,000 and now includes the fallen from most of Dorset as well as some parts of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Hampshire and over 2,000 men who worked for the Great Western Railway from all over the country.

Plans are for the site to continue growing, the pace of which will be heavily dependent on the availability of funding, and Richard would like to hear from anyone who has information or a photo of service personnel who died as a result of the Great War to increase this single repository of information.

Richard said: "We will continue to commemorate these fallen and provide them with the fitting respect they deserve."

To contact Richard email richard@wiltshiresoldiers.co.uk.