When the United States entered the war, they promised to bring back home any of their citizens killed in action. Commonwealth governments had made no such commitment and in any case, the scale of their losses was many times greater. The Commission decided that ‘to allow the removal (of bodies) by a few families (of necessity only those who could afford the cost) would be contrary to the principle of equality of treatment.’ They thought it would be much more fitting if ‘those who fought and fell together, officers and men, lay together in their last resting place, facing the line they gave their lives to maintain.’