 As reports of the grave registration work became public , the Commission began to receive letters of enquiry and requests for photographs of graves from relatives of deceased soldiers . By 1917 , 17 @,@ 000 photographs had been dispatched to relatives . In March 1915 , the Commission , with the support of the Red Cross , began to dispatch photographic prints and cemetery location information in answer to the requests . The Graves <unk> Commission became the Directorate of Graves <unk> and <unk> in the spring of 1916 in recognition of the fact that the scope of work began to extend beyond simple grave registration and began to include responding to <unk> from relatives of those killed . The <unk> 's work was also extended beyond the Western Front and into other theatres of war , with units deployed in Greece , Egypt and Mesopotamia . 
