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  • Photo: This Oct. 28, 2009 photo from a derelict cottage, shows leafy oak trees surrounding the graves of 217 members of the Native Military Corps, a black volunteer contingent during World War II, in the isolated Palmietkkuil near Springs, South Africa. Scattered through 150 countries and managed from a modest office building near London's Heathrow Airport; a global patchwork of graveyards constitutes a beautiful memorial to the ugliest carnage: the 1.7 million fighting men and women who died for Britain and its dominions in the world wars of the last century.
    AP Photo

Beauty and tragedy in global network of war graves

It is the British empire of the dead. (full story)