Robert Sackville-West

By the end of the First World War, the whereabouts of more than half a million British soldiers were unknown. Most were presumed dead, lost forever under the battlefields of northern France and Flanders.

In The Searchers, Robert Sackville-West brings together the extraordinary, moving accounts of those who dedicated their lives to the search for the missing.

It was a search that would span a century: from the department set up to investigate the fate of missing comrades in the war's aftermath to the present day, when DNA profiling continues to aid efforts to recover, identify and honour these men. Giving prominence to the personal battles of those left behind, The Searchers brings the legacy of war vividly to life in a testament to the bravery, compassion and resilience of the human spirit.