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Introduction

This page contains the details of CWGC Cemeteries that I have visited in Belgium.

Menin Gate Memorial

Ypres (now Ieper) is a town in the province of West Flanders. The town of Ypres was completely destroyed by shelling during the First World War.

The restored Ypres Cloth Hall (Stephen Stratford).

The Memorial is situated at the eastern end of the town on the road to Menin and Courtrai, and bears the names of 54,896 Commonwealth officers and men who died in the Ypres area, between August 1914 and August 1917, and have no known grave.

The Menin Gate Memorial (Stephen Stratford).

Some of the 54,896 name inscribed on the memorial (Stephen Stratford).

It was initially intended to cover the First World War period August 1914 to November 1918, but they ran out of space. The other 34, 984 names are recorded on wall panels located in Tyne Cot Cemetery, which overlooks the Passchendale (Third Battle of Ypres) battlefield.

Tyne Cot Cemetery

Tyne Cot Cemetery is located 9 kilometres north east of Ieper town centre, on the Tynecotstraat, a road leading from the Zonnebeekseweg (N332).

The Cross of Sacrifice in Tyne Cot Cemetery (Stephen Stratford).

"Tyne Cot" or "Tyne Cottage" was the name given by the Army to a barn which stood 46 metres West of the level crossing on the Passchendaele-Broodseinde road. The barn, which had become the centre of five or six "pill-boxes", was captured by the 2nd Australian Division on the 4th October, 1917, in the advance on Passchendaele.

One of these "pill-boxes" was unusually large, and it was used, after its capture, as an Advanced Dressing Station. From the 6th October to the end of March, 343 graves were made, on two sides of it, by the 50th (Northumbrian) and 33rd Divisions and by two Canadian units. From the 13th April to the 28th September it was in enemy hands again, and then it was recaptured, with Passchendaele, by the Belgian Army. The cemetery was enlarged after the Armistice by the concentration of graves from the battlefields of Passchendaele and Langemarck and from a few small burial grounds.

The plaque at the cross' base stating the capture of the pillbox by 2nd Aust. Bn on 4 October 1917 (Stephen Stratford).

It is now the largest Commonwealth War Cemetery in the world. There are now nearly 12,000, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, over 8,000 are unidentified and special memorials are erected to 38 soldiers from the United Kingdom, 27 from Canada, 15 from Australia and one from New Zealand, known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of 16 soldiers from the United Kingdom and four from Canada, buried in other cemeteries, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire.

Examples of the graves located in Tyne Cot Cemetery (Stephen Stratford).

The grave on the left of the above picture is that of 242232 Private Ralph Stevens of the 1st/5th Battalion, The Gloucestershire Regiment. Private Stevens was killed on 16 August 1917, aged 20. He was the son of John and Louisa Elizabeth Stevens, and lived in Gloucester.

The grave on the right of the above picture is that of an unknown soldier. The inscription at the top of the headstone reads "A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR." This inscription is common to all the graves of those soldiers whose identity is not known.

The cemetery covers an area of 34,941 square metres and is enclosed by a low flint wall. The Cross of Sacrifice is placed on the original large "pill-box". There are four other "pill-boxes" in the cemetery. The Eastern plots are laid out in the form of a fan, with paths radiating to the Cross; and a high flint wall, 152 metres long, follows their outline on the Eastern edge of the cemetery. This wall carries the names of nearly 35,000 soldiers from the United Kingdom and New Zealand who fell in the Ypres Salient in 1917-18 and whose graves are not known. This list of names continues the list contained on the Menin Gate Memorial.