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A war grave is a burial place for members of the armed forces or civilians who died during military campaigns or operations. The term does not only apply to graves: ships sunk during wartime are often considered to be war graves, as are military aircraft that crash into water; this is particularly true if crewmen perished inside the vehicle. Classification of a war grave is not limited to the occupier's death in combat but includes military personnel who die while in active service: for example, during the Crimean War, more military personnel died of disease than as a result of enemy action.
A common difference between cemeteries of war graves and those of civilian peacetime graves is the uniformity of those interred. They generally died during a relatively short period, in a small geographic area and consist of service members from the few military units involved.
In the United Kingdom, 67 ship wrecks and all underwater military aircraft are "protected places" under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 which imposes restrictions on their exploration and marine salvage.
In Spain, war graves are protected by the Law 60/1962.
Despite the protection afforded to war graves, companies such as Odyssey Marine Exploration have not hesitated to raid sunken vessels to gain access to their cargo.
Rupert Brooke's poem, The Soldier - "If I should die, think only this of me: / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England", is a patriotic poem about the possibility of dying abroad during a war. Brooke is himself buried in a war grave on Skyros in the Aegean Sea, having died whilst en route to fight in the Gallipoli Campaign.
The War Graves Photographic Project, founded in 2008, aims to create an archive of names and photographs of all military graves and memorials from 1914 to the present day from any nationality, although focus on Commonwealth soldiers.