A new app is helping to rescue veterans' stories from fading memories

In July 1944, gunner Walter Chater serving with the Royal Canadian Artillery in Normandy learnedthat one of his four brothers, Eric, had also survived the D-Day invasion and was stationed just a few kilometres away.

Chater was a motorcycle dispatch rider, doing the dangerous work offerryingmessages at high speed between the Canadian command post near Juno Beachandthe front lines. His commanding officer gave himpermission to visit his brother for the night.

"Then, on his trip back to his unit, he hit a landmine on his motorcycle and died there. Quick, violent and done," his grandson Matthew Chater told CBC News.

That's the accountMatthew and his brother Daniel Chater heard of howtheir grandfather died inan explosion at age32. They believe it's the story brought home by their great uncle Eric, who survived the war.

"It was passed down by word of mouth," Daniel Chater said. "My mother was told the story, who then told me the story.

"Sadly, if we don't tell the story to our kids, it ends. And I didn't want that to happen."

Walter Chater is now among more than 330,000 slain soldiers from around the world whosebiographies and war recordsmake up a remarkable archive describing what wars of the pastlookedlike to those who fought them.

That archive, consisting in part of information culled from theCommonwealth War Graves Commission and Veterans Affairs Canada,is accessible through a one-of-a-kind app developed by Calgary-based tech company Memory Anchor.

WATCH | App preserves soldiers' stories:

Scan a tombstone, learn a soldier's story

2 days ago

Duration 2:15

A Canadian veteran-founded software company has mapped out gravesites around the world to share thousands of fallen soldiers' stories. Their app allows users to scan tombstones or explore cemeteries in multiple countries.

Veteran Ryan Mullens said his company created the apptohelp preserve thestories of those who fought and died as the number of living veterans of those conflicts continues to dwindle.

"Some of these soldiers from the First and Second World War, those memories are dying with a lot of these family members," said Mullens, who retired from the reserves as a corporal in 2010.

"As the generations go further, that is not being transmitted into that next generation ... We don't want to lose these individuals' stories and their sacrifice."

Mullens said his team used artificial intelligence to remotely map more than 100 cemeteries in Canada and more than 10 other countries.

Using the Memory Anchorapp to scan a veteran's tombstone pulls upa trove of biographical information and, in some cases, service records, stories and photos.

Like so many other headstonesat Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery in France,Chater'smarkeroffers only sparse details like his age, unit and rank. But by using the app, a visitor can now instantly view oldphotos of him astride his motorcycle and read some of the letters he sent home.

"Dad is doing fine only he would like very much to be home with you so we could all go on picnics together and have some fun," reads one of Chater'spostcards to his son.

Mullenssaidthat postcard struck him because it's something he would have said to his own son.

"It's not just a name on a headstone," he said. "This is a person that you can look into their eyes. It humanizes them a bit."

If the app has few details about an individual soldier in its archive,Mullens said,it can deployAI to show the user where the soldier's regiment was and what it wasdoing when he died.

"So we know a little bit about that heroic action that they gave their life in," he said.

The app, which has been publicly available for more than a year now, also has a navigating system that can guide users tospecific gravesites.

It can be difficult for visitors to locate individual gravesusing registries, roman numerals and a grid system, Mullens said.

Retired majorHarry Chadwick used the app in Normandy this year to help find the burial sites of more than 1801st Hussar soldiers. He was part of a group that placed regimental flags on their sites for the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

Without the app, he said, he would have missed "a lot" of those gravesites.

Chadwick also used the app to pinpoint on a map the place where his great uncle William Vernon Rattee was laid to rest in Malta.

Rattee was killed in action at age 22 while flying with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War. No one from his family has ever visited the island in Southern Europe to pay their respects, Chadwicksaid.

Using the app, Chadwick can see exactly where Rattee is buried in the centreof Malta (Capuccini) Naval Cemetery and even what his headstone looks like.

"I was able to say to a cousin, 'Tell his nephew that he's in a place of honour,'" he said, adding hehopes to visit in person one day.

"It's comforting. I think he'll forgive us for not getting there yet, but we will get there."

Daniel and Matthew Chater saythey've saved their grandfather's war records and plan on sharing them with their children butit's still comforting to know that his story liveson ina new way.

"He felt the need to stand up against something that wasn't right in his eyes and he did so," said Matthew Chater.

"I'm proud of that. It's courageous."