Lindenhoek Chalet Military Cemetery

Lindenhoek Chalet Military Cemetery on a beautiful spring day. 

When we toured the cemeteries and sites of interest around Kemmel on this website in 2021, the one cemetery close to the hill that I failed to show you, for very good reason, as, at the time, I hadn’t been there, was this one.

Cemetery entrance, cemetery name, register & visitor’s book.  Turn right on entry,…

…for the ‘In Perpetuity’ tablet and, on the wall on the left, a map of the Western Front that you find in most cemeteries and that I very rarely point out, but have now done so twice in the last three cemetery posts.  Turn left on entry, however,…

…and this is the way in, with Mont Kemmel looming above us in the background.  Incidentally, those house roofs you can see on the left top several buildings that make it impossible to get a photograph of the front of the cemetery from across the road.

So here’s the map I showed you back in the first post of this little tour, with one major addition.  The cemeteries in the Douve valley that we visited some time ago are all marked with pink dots, those we have visited recently in orange, and this final post finds us at the red dot up in square 27 (top left) in the shadow of Mont Kemmel (in green), our links with the Douve admittedly slightly more tenuous, but I don’t mind if you don’t.  The German positions on the Messines Ridge in the right half of the map are marked in red, with the British front line marked as a dotted blue line.  And the major addition, the mauve lines and the shaded area within,…

…corresponds pretty closely with this view taken on 29th April 1915 that looks from Mont Kemmel towards Messines village, three and a half very-foreshortened miles away across the valley of the Steenbeek, the front line trenches crossing the picture in front of us beneath the Messines Ridge, before following the slope of the ridge away from us in the middle distance on the far right.

The cemetery was begun in March 1915 in the lee of Mont Kemmel, close to a nearby dressing station.  There are two plots here, Plot I, closest to the camera, consisting of original, wartime, burials,…

…and Plot II, across the far side of the cemetery, the front row in shadow in this shot, consisting entirely of concentration, post-war, burials.  A little over three hundred men are now buried here.  Click here for the cemetery plan, with thanks, as ever, to the CWGC.

The first burials were made here in March 1915, at the far end of Plot I, and the plot can be viewed roughly chronologically were we to start at the far end,…

…but, of course we’re not going to, are we, because that would be far too simple, and because these six headstones in the front row, Row K,…

…along with those that follow,…

…marking the graves of seventeen men, all of the East Yorkshire Regiment,…

…all of whom died on 17th June 1916, have a sad story to tell,…

…as documented in the 4th Bn. East Yorkshire Regiment war diary.  It’s worth noting, for future reference, that this burial ground is referred to here as Lindenhoek Cemetery.

Second Lieutenant Carlton, by the way, is buried in Row J, behind the other East Yorkshire burials, the headstone here on the left,…

…his name second in line on this GRRF.  If you didn’t read the war diary, that’ll mean nothing.  Note that a number of the East Yorkshire men in the front row, Row K, are listed as being buried in collective graves.

And as we’ve started in the front row, we shall continue in the front row, where the next burial is another East Yorkshire casualty, although he died on 27th June 1916, followed by three more men killed on 17th June 1916, two of whom were R.E. tunnelers.

After these June 1916 burials the cemetery would remain unused for almost a year before burials would begin again during the build-up to the Battle of Messines,…

…with casualties added to the end of each row in Plot I, the final five here in Row K all men who died on 6th or 7th June 1917, at the start of the battle.

Cross of Sacrifice,…

…and back in Plot I, Row J begins with just a single 1917 burial, a Royal Garrison Artillery subaltern who died on 28th September, although most of the other burials in the row are Royal Welch Fusiliers who died in April 1916.  Behind, at the start of Row I,…

…these two German casualties, the only Germans buried in the cemetery, are as unknown as it gets.  Men captured or killed on raids would be unlikely to be carrying papers, so perhaps these two men were wounded prisoners following one such incident.

There are more East Yorkshire casualties further along Row I, although from a little earlier in the year than the gassed men – you should have read the war diary – we met earlier.  These three men all died on 22nd April 1916,…

…and this man, not the first Private Major we have encountered over the years, on 16th April 1916.

Three more Royal Garrison Artillery casualties from September 1917 at the start of Row H, two, who share a grave, also killed on 28th September 1917, as was the R.G.A. officer in Row J, if you remember.

View looking south west across Plot I, Row G now on the left,…

…the first headstone in the row, on the left, a July 1917 K.R.R.C. casualty, alongside two Welch, or Welsh, depending on which headstone takes your preference, Regiment privates killed in August 1915.

Across the other side of the plot, with Private Major in the left foreground, it’s the Canadian burials three rows back in this shot, still in Row G, that are of interest at this point.  The two insets show, left, the original wartime cross of Private John Thorold Blowers, 27th Bn, Canadian Infantry, killed in action on 6th February 1916 aged 22*, and a later, probably post-war, picture (right) of the Canadian graves now in Row G.  Private Blowers’ headstone is the central Canadian headstone of the five pictured here in Row G.

*note the duckboards and what appears to be a shellburst, top right of left inset.

Early August 1915 Welch Regiment casualties at the end of Row F,…

…and midway down the row, one of just four non-Welch Regiment burials in the row, the grave of Captain William Walbeoffe-Wilson, Monmouthshire Regiment, killed on 2nd August 1915 aged 33,…

…and although the 3rd Bn. Monmouth’s war diary is more than tricky to decipher at times, after a bit of digital wizardry, you can read for yourselves the classic fate, you might say, of Captain Walbeoffe-Wilson (click to enlarge, as with everything).

More Welch Regiment men further along the same row, these men killed slightly earlier, in July 1915.  A close look at the two rows immediately behind, Rows E & D, shows a plethora – well, eleven – of headstones inscribed with the same emblem, that of the Durham Light Infantry, and in total there are nineteen D.L.I. men buried in these two rows.

Row F begins with three summer 1917 casualties,…

…and turning our attention to the D.L.I. burials in the rows immediately behind,…

…seven men of the D.L.I. are visible in this shot, behind one of the Welch Regiment burials in Row F in the foreground.  The three men in Row E, the first row, and the two headstones on the left of the four visible here in Row D, all died between 11th & 13th July 1915.  The two men on the right in Row D are earlier casualties from June, one of whom, Private Pattison, is mentioned, although incorrectly spelt, in the 6th Bn. D.L.I. war diary,…

…and is another man killed in a trench system with which we became familiar last post,…

…and which you can see once again on this map, in his case in trench E1R, marked here by the red ‘x’.

Panning right from the previous shot, and once again behind the two Welsh headstones in Row F in the foreground, the three D.L.I. men in Row E are all 1/7th Bn., and all are July 1915 casualties.  The two D.L.I. men on the left in Row D, the only 10th Bn. men buried here, died on 20th June, according to the date on both headstones.

The battalion war diary tells us that 10th Bn. D.L.I. were only in this sector for a short period of time, ten days or so, arriving in nearby Dranoutre on 12th June 1915 ‘for attachment for instruction to 138 Brigade – consisting of 4th Leicesters & 5th Leicesters and 4th & 5th Lincs’,…

…and departing for Poperinghe on 21st June.  The death of one of the two 10th Bn. men buried in Row D, Private McHugh, is noted in the war diary on 19th June, but there is no mention of the second man, Private Ritchie, who of course may be one of the four ordinary ranks listed above as died of wounds.  Private Lumsden, whose death is noted on 20th June, is buried in Packhorse Farm Shrine Cemetery, our previous stop, just over a mile away, as the crow flies, to the south east.

Another of the dozen D.L.I. casualties in Row E, ten of whom, including Bugler Morrison, are 1/7th Bn. men,…

…more seen here further along the row, these men killed on 29th & 27th June respectively,…

…although you will find no mention of their deaths, nor of any casualties at all, in the day-to-day record in the 1/7th Bn. war diary.

One of two summer 1917 burials at the start of Row E,…

…the second closest to the camera here, with four more at the start of Row D behind.  At which point we pick up, to a certain extent, where we left off last post.

If you remember our detailed visit to Packhorse Farm Shrine Cemetery, nearly all the burials were from just two battalions, the 1/5th Lincolns & the 1/4th Leicesters.  However, had you read the accompanying documentation (what do you mean you did?  Really?  Well done you.), then you will be aware that they weren’t the only battalions rotating in and out of the trenches in this sector.  The 1/4th Lincolns were likewise rotating with the 1/5th Leicesters (complicated, this, or at least confusing), but we have seen no signs of burials from either battalion in the cemeteries we have so far visited.  Until now, that is.  Further along Row D, these two men of the 1/4th Lincolnshire Regiment died in June 1915,…

…although the 1/4th Lincoln’s war diary also makes no mention of casualties among the ordinary ranks,…

…and three men of the 1/5th Leicestershire Regiment, all early June 1915 casualties, are buried at the end of the row.

R.F.A. corporal killed in October 1917 at the start of Row C,…

…alongside another artilleryman, this time R.G.A., who died in June 1917, and third in line…

…a Royal Engineer sapper who died in July 1917.

More men of the Leicesters & Lincolns,…

…the row ending with another Lincoln man and two early May 1915 Notts & Derby (Sherwood Foresters) casualties.

R.G.A. gunner killed on 29th April 1915 at the end of Row B (close-up below), with more Sherwood Foresters buried alongside.

Nine Sherwood Foresters are buried in Row B, and four behind in Row A, all from either 1/5th or 1/7th Bns,…

…and all April 1915 casualties except the man on the far right, who died on 12th May.

The 1/7th Bn Notts & Derby war diary notes their first casualty, Private G. H. Cawtham, one of the four Sherwood Foresters buried in Row A, on 5th April, ‘buried [at] midnight in corner of field adjoining Lindenhock (sic) Chalet’.  Just four burials had been made here at this time, hence there is, as yet, no suggestion that this field was a cemetery, as such.

Private Cawtham’s headstone can be seen here on the right in Row A behind that of Private J. A. Webb, another of the Sherwood Foresters buried in Row B.

Both Private Allen (pictured) and Private Shepherd are buried in Row B, the war diary referring once again to ‘buried in corner of field adjoining Lindenhock (sic) Chalet’.

The death of Private Webb, his headstone pictured earlier, is noted at the bottom of the page, his burial ‘in field adjoining Lindenhock (sic) Chalet’.  Still just a field, not yet a cemetery.

GRRFs for Plot I Rows A, B & C showing the earliest burials in the cemetery, from late March 1915, in Row A on the left page.  The final burials during the war would be made here in late October 1917, also in Row A, the top names once again on the page on the left.

The 1/5th Bn. Sherwood Foresters war diary details the battalion’s arrival at Locre from Bailleul on 5th April and their subsequent introduction to the trenches, relieving 1/7th Bn. Sherwood Foresters, on 9th April,…

…along with their subsequent casualties during their time here,…

…although none of the men killed are mentioned by name.

1/4th Bn. Lincolnshire Regiment casualty from May 1915 buried in Row B, with one of just a couple of unidentified men buried in Plot I in Row A behind.

Two more of the 1/5th Bn. Sherwood Foresters killed in April 1915 and buried in Row A.

Looking north west across the cemetery from behind Plot I Row B, Mont Kemmel on the left horizon,…

…and a not-dissimilar view from the war years.

On to Plot II, on the far side of the cemetery,…

 

…this panoramic view looking west across Plot I from the rear of the cemetery, Plot II on the far right, and Mont Kemmel beyond the farm building, the gradient of the cemetery, and the house roofs, showing that we are still on the hill’s lower slopes at this point.

The graves in Plot II are all concentration burials,…

…these men in Row A all late-war casualties from July & August 1918.

Two are Canadians, the only ones in Plot II, both of whom died on 4th August 1918.

By sheer coincidence, the one hundred and thirty men buried in this plot can be split exactly into sixty five who are identified, and sixty five who are unknown,…

…although the regiments of quite a number of the unidentified burials have been identified (Row B, above & below).

The CWGC website tells us that the cemetery ‘was enlarged after the Armistice when over 100 graves were brought in from the battlefields surrounding Kemmel’, and as it’s always interesting to see where men who were later concentrated in a cemetery had originally been buried,…

…and as the next row, Row C, contains six identified men among the ten in the row, let’s use it as an example and see what we can find out.

This GRRF begins with Row C, the names of the six men clear to see, the red ‘C2’ (and ‘C1’ at the bottom of the form next to the Row E burials) alongside the entries confirming that they are concentrations.  Row C ends with two soldiers, Private Hallard, West Yorkshire Regiment (in red pen) & Private Tomalin, Royal Irish Regiment, last in the row, flanking one of the unidentified men,…

…their headstones seen here, Hallard on the left, Tomalin on the right.  If we take these two identified men as examples, we need to find the relevant Burial Return forms that always accompany exhumed soldiers, because that will give us a map reference for their original burial sites.  Which is when, and where, the problems begin.  Because neither Private Hallard, nor Private Tomalin, nor the other four identified men in the row, appear to have Burial Return forms, and thus there is no way to know where they were originally buried.

Three unidentified men of the Leicesters, and a Norfolk Regiment private who died on 15th April 1918 in Row D.  The GRRF we just looked at tells us that only two of the ten men in Row D are identified, one being Private Orford of the Norfolk Regiment, on the far right here…

…the other, Private Aspinall of the Monmouths, who also died on 15th April 1915, second from the left here, but neither of these men have Burial Return forms either.  Which is most odd.

So why would that be?  Well, most likely the forms do exist but are for some reason unavailable, or they no longer exist as they have been lost or destroyed, because they most surely must have existed in the first place.  Unless, of course, all these men were moved a matter of yards, from one part of this cemetery to another, in which case there would perhaps be no requirement for a Burial Report form.  But I somehow doubt it.

Row E begins with another identified man, Private Ernest Pallister of the Durham Light Infantry, who died on 26th July 1918, next to more unidentified men, including an unknown New Zealander.  Does Private Pallister have a Burial Return form, I wonder?  Well no, he doesn’t.

Row F, these burials at the start all unidentified although regiments, in four cases, are known.

The men at the other end of the row are all identified, and no, none have Burial Return forms either.  The three New Zealand casualties at the end of the row all died on 7th June 1917, the first day of the Battle of Messines.

Row H contains burials from much earlier in the war, these Leicester & Lincolnshire privates all April 1915 casualties; the regiments’ exploits in the spring of 1915 have already featured in the previous post, when we visited Packhorse Farm Shrine Cemetery.  Second from the left,…

…this seventeen-year-old 1/5th Bn. Leicester private…

…is one of two men killed, according to the combined 1/4th & 1/5th Bns Leicester war diary (see column on right), on 15th April 1915.  I wonder if there are any Burial Return forms for any of these identified Leicester & Lincolnshire men?  Private Allen, no, Private Boot, no, Private Bridges, er, wait a minute,…

…what have we here?  This is a Burial Return form, and Private Bridges’ name is listed on it.  And what this form shows us is that these bodies were brought here from a number of different sites, just as the CWGC tells us.  Or maybe I’m jumping the gun a little.  Including the two names that are crossed out at the bottom, there are ten names on this form  ostensibly reburied in this cemetery, and I say ostensibly because I can assure you that you will not find all ten names among the identified headstones in this cemetery, despite the evidence of the form.  In fact, just four of these men – Privates Smith, Burton & Bridges and Sergeant Kidd – are actually reburied in this cemetery, at least under their own names, and two others, Second Lieutenant Thomas & Private Holloway, no longer have a known grave and are listed on the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing.  My guess is that they are all probably here somewhere, six identities annoyingly lost after their exhumation from their original burial sites and before reburial here.

Row I, and two of just four identified Australians in the plot, Sapper Sacks, on the left, who died, another Battle of Messines casualty, on 8th June 1917, and Private Benn, on the right, who died on 15th December 1917.  The man in the centre, Private A. McIntosh of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, served under an alias, his real name being Andrew S. Dingwall.  Anyway, let’s check to see if we have Burial Return forms for any of these men, and without going through the same process as last time, the answer is yes.

Sapper Charles Sacks, Australian Engineers, the first burial in the row, is the final entry on this Burial Return form, although you explain to me exactly why the burials on this form are all supposedly buried in Messines Ridge British Cemetery, which is, you will note, the heading on the form.  That doesn’t help us one bit.

Two more identified New Zealand Messines casualties at the end of Row I, again with no attached Burial Return forms,…

…and then a recognisable name, because the furthest right of these four men in Row J is Private Burton, 1/4th Lincolns, one of the four men named on the first Burial Return form that actually is reburied here.  The two central headstones are both men of the 1/5th Leicesters killed on 11th May 1915,…

…and the Leicester’s war diary for the night of 10th/11th May 1915 tells of a German raid on trench E1L (I refer you to the earlier trench map), the results of which not only caused casualties on both sides, but great displeasure to the British staff.

Still in Row J, another of the named men on the first Burial Return form, Private J. L. Smith, Lincolnshire Regiment, is buried here on the left, with two more Lincolns, both killed at the end of April 1915, buried next to him.  All three were teenagers, not that they would have recognised the term.

Private Dallywaters was killed in action, Private Chamberlain died of wounds.

Only two men are identified in Row K,…

…one of whom is another New Zealander, buried beneath the centre headstone, who died on 7th June 1917,…

…and just a single man in Row L, a Lincolnshire private who died on 21st April 1915 (fifth headstone from the camera),…

…although once again, a number of these men’s regiments are known, such as the two unknown York & Lancaster Regiment men whose graves are pictured here.

The final row, Row M, contains seven unidentified soldiers,…

…and, as you will most likely have presumed, the three named men, including another New Zealand 7th June 1917 casualty on the left here, alongside two Australians, one unidentified, do not have any attached Burial Return forms.

The final rows of Plot II, the two Australian graves closest to the camera.  Following the wall in the background off to the left,…

…takes us to the cemetery’s north west corner…

…where six special memorials, two British, on the left, and four Australian,…

…remember men ‘Known to be buried in this cemetery’,…

…and, centre & right, ‘Believed to be buried in this cemetery’.  The two British casualties died in September 1917, all four Australians in March 1918.

Which ends our visit,…

…and if we’ve learnt anything,…

…it’s that sometimes you might have to use logic & guesswork when evidence is unavailable,…

…but don’t ever claim it as proof.

This also concludes our short tour of the remaining cemeteries north of the River Douve, although you might like to see a couple of now-updated posts originally published some years ago when we visited R. E. Farm Cemetery & Wulvergem Churchyard, across on the eastern side of the Douve valley.

The 1/4th Lincoln’s war diary may not list the names of any of the ordinary ranks who were killed during their tenure of the trenches in this sector, but it does include their officer casualties, all of whom are buried together in Dranoutre Churchyard (above), to the south west of Mont Kemmel,…

…and you can visit them, see their faces, and read the war diary extracts that mention them, such as this example above which records the deaths of Second Lieutenant G. Staniland (headstone pictured above) & three privates on 13th April 1915, by clicking here.

Those of you who have followed this website for many years now might be wondering how many more CWGC cemeteries in Belgian Flanders we have yet to visit, or, more to the point, how many of those cemeteries have I, personally, yet to photograph – there are, after all, a finite number.  The answer to both is not so many; we are now down to single figures still to visit, believe it or not, but rest assured that, at the moment, there are still a similar number of cemeteries, such as the one pictured above, that I have already visited but have yet to show you around.  We shall be heading to pastures new to the west of Mont Kemmel next, land that the Germans may have set foot on, briefly, but on which they were not destined to stay for too long.