The daubing of blue paint on the headstones of Australian diggers' graves at a war cemetery in west London is a "sickening act" of vandalism, a war graves commission official says.
Several headstones at the Harefield cemetery were spray painted with meaningless blue shapes over the weekend, prompting a police investigation and the dispatch of an expert clean-up team.
Most of the 126 graves at the cemetery are of Australian soldiers who were sent to the nearby No.1 Australian Auxiliary Hospital after being wounded on the Western Front during World War I.
Australian army nurse Ruby Dickinson is also buried there.
The graffiti attack is the second act of vandalism at the cemetery this year after a flagpole was cut in half and paint was daubed on the entrance and a newly installed information panel just 24 hours before the Anzac Day ceremony there.
The paint was cleaned off in time for the ceremony and Commonwealth War Graves Commission spokesman Peter Francis said a clean-up team was in action again on Monday to remove the offending graffiti.
"It's just a sickening act really, one that's deeply distressing, not just for those of us who spend our working lives trying to perpetuate the memory of the men that gave their lives for us but also for the families of those men that are buried and commemorated there."
Francis told AAP there was nothing to suggest it was a targeted attack on Australian war graves, with the graffiti containing no clear messages.
"Obviously it's someone who just doesn't appreciate what these people did for us. It looks like just a mindless act of vandalism, just pure stupidity."
Francis said stonemasons used high-pressure water jets on Monday to try to fully remove the graffiti but it would depend on how much paint had leached into the stone.
The distinctive scroll-shaped headstones were chosen by staff and patients at the hospital and were carefully restored in time for this year's Anzac ceremony.
Every Anzac Day local schoolchildren lay fresh spring flowers on the graves.
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