WWII commemoration activists find 510 unburied soldiers

The Valley expedition of the Memory Watch, a public movement to search unburied soldiers fallen in World War II to inter them with honours, has found the remains of 510 Soviet soldiers in the Novgorod Region, Russia's northwest.

More than 30 bodies were found near the township Myasnoi Bor, where nazis encircled and killed off the 2nd Assault Army in 1941. An approximate 200 bodies were found in the Ramushevo Corridor in the woods near Staraya Russa, say Memory Watch statistics for August 25.

The remains will be buried with honours tomorrow.

The expedition found a Sovier soldier's identity card and thirty plastic pendants with identity papers inside. Nine could be read on the spot. Others, in a worse state of preservation, will come under computer analyses at the expedition HQ.

The Memory Watch came across a large stock of arms and munitions in the Novgorod Region's woodland. Two small arsenals with a total 18 artillery shells were found in the Ramushevo Corridor. A tank gun barrel, and several automatics and infantry rifles were found on the site where the 2nd Army was exterminated.

Launched August 14, this year's Memory Watch has brought together 400 activists from twenty Russian regions.