La Clytte Military Cemetery can be found a couple of miles south east of Reningelst (once Reninghelst, with an ‘h’) on the road to Kemmel.
The cemetery would be used throughout four years of war,…
…and this is one of two pretty much identical entrance arches on either side of the cemetery’s eastern boundary from which we can gain access.
The ‘In Perpetuity’ tablet, in English, can be found inside the left-hand entrance, along with the cemetery register, but before we go in,…
…La Clytte (now De Klijte), the cemetery marked in green in the top left corner, about a mile and a half north west of Mont Kemmel (shaded in green at the bottom) and today a village of six hundred people, was not much more than a handful of buildings clustered around a crossroads (mauve circle) on the road to Reninghelst during the Great War. Nonetheless, the hamlet was used as a brigade headquarters – bet they’d moved out by the time the Germans got this close (British trenches in red, German in blue) in July 1918 – and there were Field Ambulances here too, hence the need for a cemetery.
Once inside we are greeted by a Stone of Remembrance,…
…beyond which…
…are six very long rows of headstones. Close to 1,100 men are buried here, and as we look down the length of the cemetery,…
…it seems sensible to show you the cemetery plan here, because as the plan shows, the cemetery is indeed six long rows of burials, although split into six plots. Once again we have a cemetery of two halves, the headstones immediately ahead of us on entry, and indeed all those left white on the plan, being post-war concentrations, moved here from isolated graves and small graveyards around Reninghelst, Dickebusch, Locre and Kemmel post-war, while those highlighted in orange are all original burials made here during the war. You can see that four of the rows of headstones in Plot II, five in Plot IV, and all six rows in Plot V are split into two sections with a gap separating them; thus when we look at those plots and I refer to the first or second part of a row, you’ll know what I am on about.
The first burials were made here on 1st November 1914, and the cemetery would continue to be used, with the occasional short gap, until the spring of 1918, by which time around six hundred men, half of whom are artillerymen or engineers, had been buried here in what are now Plots I, II, III and part of Plot IV. After the war, the cemetery was significantly increased in size when Plot IV was completed, and Plots V & VI added. We shall be starting our exploration with those original burials,…
…returning to these concentration burials in Plots IV, V (above)…
…& Plot VI later.
And we won’t begin with the original burials in Plot III (above), either, all of which are casualties from the latter months of 1917.
No, we shall start in Plot I, where the first burials in the cemetery were made in late 1914. And in order to find them, we need to head to the far end of the plot,…
…from where this view looks back down the cemetery (you can see the two entrance arches in the background), Plot I Row D on the left & Row C on the right. The first four burials made here, all men who died on 1st November 1914, can be found at the beginning of Row D,…
…two privates each from the Northumberland Fusiliers & Lincolnshire Regiment, their names listed on this GRRF, although they are the only burials from 1914 in the cemetery, the next burial by date, slightly further along the row, being a single R.E. burial from March 1915.
Two of the 1914 headstones are pictured here, Fusilier on the left, Lincolns on the right.
Looking back down Plot I. There are burials from 1915, 1916 & the summer of 1917 in the plot, and although the majority of the graves in the first half of Row A on the right, as well as those in both Rows B & C on the left, are from 1915,…
…there are a couple of 1917 burials to be found among them, such as the Royal Welch Fusilier private shown here on the left, who died in late May 1917.
Still in Row A, the graves of Private G. Ffrangcon-Davies, Honourable Artillery Company, who died on 10th May 1915 aged 19,…
…Company Serjeant Major A. Glossop, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, killed in action on 30th June 1915 aged 27,…
…and Captain R. A. Saunders M.C., Royal Flying Corps and Royal Field Artillery (pictured), also killed in action, on 14th March 1916, aged 21.
The second half of Row A contains burials from 1916, as do Rows B, C & D behind.
These two Durham Light Infantry subalterns buried at the end of Row A died in June 1916, the death, from wounds, of the man on the right,…
…Second Lieutenant James Francis Gordon Ashworth, who died on 25th June 1916 aged 26,…
…noted in the 9th Bn. D.L.I. war diary.
The burials at the start of Row B begin with five Gordon Highlanders (above & below),…
…all killed in the spring of 1915,…
…followed by the grave of Captain Andrew Tucker Squarey MacIver, Royal Engineers, who died of wounds on 24th April 1915, aged 37.
Late April 1915 burials – South Lancashire Regiment, H.A.C. & Worcestershires – as the row continues, the headstone in the centre…
…that of Private Lancelot Graham Harris, Honourable Artillery Company, who died of wounds, received the previous day at Dickebusch, on 28th April 1915, aged 20. “Goodbye till then”.
Late April & early May 1915 burials – Royal Scots, Gordon Highlanders & Royal Scots Fusiliers – in Row C,…
…the row continuing with the graves of Lance Corporal J. Clark, Northumberland Fusiliers, who died on 6th May 1915, and Private J. Bibby, Army Cyclist Corps, who died on 21st May 1915,…
…with, once again, some 1916 burials at the far end. Row D, behind, is, apart from the 1914 burials we saw at the start of the row earlier, structured very similarly.
Row E consists mainly of burials from 1915, interspersed with men killed in June 1917; the H.A.C. man in the centre here died in April 1915, those on either side, R.G.A. & R.E., on 4th June 1917.
The dozen 1917 burials in the row, such as the R.G.A. gunner & R.E. sapper in the previous shot and the East Lancashire private here on the left, are all men killed in the days leading up to the Battle of Messines in June 1917, or, in the case of the R.F.A gunner here on the right, on 7th June, the day the battle began. In the centre, a Royal Fusilier casualty from late May 1915.
On the left, a Yorkshire Regiment private attached to the Royal Engineers who died on 5th June 1917, alongside two privates – Middlesex & Welch Regiments – who died in the summer of 1915,…
…before the row ends with two unidentified men.
Row F contains forty two burials, the most in the plot,…
…and all are men killed in the summer of 1917.
There are five Canadian engineers, all tunnelers, buried in the row, two of whose headstones are pictured above,…
…but otherwise the row is full of artillerymen, pre-Passchendaele casualties, all these artillerymen killed in the second half of July 1917.
Which brings us to the end of Plot I, this view looking back down towards the cemetery entrance.
Moving on to Plot II, here with Row C on the left and Row D on the right, leading us up to the Cross of Sacrifice at the end of the cemetery, and the Scherpenberg, less than a mile away, on the western horizon.
Row A is split in two, the final eight burials seen here,…
…and the first twenty five seen here, and most of the burials in the row are from a variety of months in 1917. Fourth headstone from the camera…
…Captain Edwyn Harold Bird, The Queen’s, died on 24th February 1917, aged 24,…
…and further along the row, Reginald Stephens, R.F.A., who served under the alias of Acting Bombardier R. Adams, and who died on 21st May 1917, aged 23. Note that because this, according to the rules, is regarded as a non-standard headstone, as are all headstones for men who fought under an alias, it features a Latin cross with the R.F.A. emblem at the top, as opposed to within the Broad cross that you will see on most of the R.F.A. burials here.
Still in Row A, these four men died at the end of July 1917. In the centre, two headstones mark a collective grave containing the bodies of three R.F.A. gunners, all killed on 30th July 1917. Again, note the Latin cross, serving for both headstones, and emblems, the same design as we saw previously, these headstones also regarded as non-standard. Why are there three men buried here? Bearing in mind their date of death, I think we can hazard a guess as to what occurred. Victims, I would imagine, of the artillery war. Guns searching out guns.
And as we’re talking guns, here’s a map extract, dated 25th September 1918, showing the abundance of camps and railways in the La Clytte area. The cemetery is marked in green, and the railway sidings beneath the blue circle marked as ‘Destroyed’, and the effects of the German guns…
…are pictured here,…
…these two photographs dated 23rd September 1918.
Looking back along Plot II Row A (above & below),…
…the graves closest to the camera at the start of the row from late July & August 1917.
Engineers, Canadian & British, in Row B. On the left, Sapper Harry Shpynda, Canadian Engineers, killed in action on 27th February 1917, and on the right, Lieutenant George Klaasson Scott, Royal Engineers, who died on 24th February 1917 aged 24.
Still in Row B, the grave of Corporal A. C. Smith, British West Indies Regiment, who died of wounds on 27th May 1917 aged 25,…
…and in Row C, Shoeing Smith C. W. Jones, Royal Field Artillery, who died on 14th January 1917.
Looking along Row C towards the Cross of Sacrifice,…
…and looking back the other way, Row C now on the right, & Row D on the left. The second headstone in Row D…
…marks the grave of Lieutenant Colonel Noel Houghton, Officer Commanding 17th Bn. Notts & Derby Regiment,…
…who was killed by shellfire near battalion headquarters on 13th September 1917, aged 34.
Two R.F.A. gunners in Row D who died on 11th September 1917, and on the right, a young Canadian engineer killed the previous day.
Further along Row D, two more British West Indies Regiment casualties, Privates Henry Manning (close-up below) & H. G. Brown, both killed on 27th May 1917.
There are seven British West Indies Regiment casualties buried in this cemetery, all 3rd Bn., five of whom died on 27th May 1917,…
…and two on 5th June 1917, and all but one are buried here in Plot II. By the end of the Great War, 185 men from the regiment had been killed in action, alongside 1,071 who died of sickness.
The burials closest to the camera in the second part of Row D are from the early months of 1917, with a number of summer 1916 burials at the far end.
These men of the Queen’s in Row E were all killed on 5th January 1917,…
…their deaths mentioned, if you can read it, in the 10th Bn. The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment) war diary. Note that La Clytte is referenced twice.
All six Queen’s casualties can be seen in this shot of the first part of Row E, with another Canadian, this man a tunneler – at least nineteen of the fifty Canadian burials in the cemetery are tunnelers – at the end of the row nearest the camera,…
…the final name on this GRRF.
The second part of Row E begins with a Canadian infantryman who died in September 1916, the next burials all from June 1916,…
…as are these burials in Row F,…
…which include two of only ten identified Australians buried in this cemetery. Both of these Australian Mining and Boring Company men died of wounds in early June 1917.
The final grave in Row F is the grave of The Rev. Basil Pemberton Plumptre M.A., M.C., Chaplain to the Forces 4th Class, killed by a stray shell while visiting troops in the line in front of White Château (probably the one at Hollebeke – see photo below) on 16th July 1917, aged 34.
Taken on 20th May 1917, this shot shows the Ypres-Comines Canal in the foreground, with the remains of White Chateau – the light-coloured rubble – marked across the battlefield.
Plot II, the Cross of Sacrifice and the Scherpenberg. German troops would see the view to the west from the top of the hill on 29th April 1918, but not for very long.
For more on the German capture, or otherwise, of the Flanders hills (seen here from a couple of miles east of La Clytte) in the spring of 1918, click here.
These burials in Row E are all men killed on 7th, 8th & 9th August 1917. Twenty one of the fifty identified Canadian casualties buried in the cemetery can be found in Plot II, those pictured here two infantrymen flanking an engineer,…
…with another Canadian engineer here on the right alongside four British artillerymen, all late July 1917 casualties, at the start of Row F,…
…seen here again on the left as we look back down the length of the cemetery once more.
Back in Plot II Row B, the man buried beneath the first headstone in the row, already in his forties, and despite the loss of an eye in a shooting accident, had secured a commission with the Army Remounts Service soon after the outbreak of war. Major Arthur Toward Watson (‘Patch’, of course, to his comrades) then transferred to the 1st Bn. King’s Royal Rifle Corps in May 1916, fought on the Somme where he was seriously wounded and evacuated to Blighty, returning to France in time to take part in the Battle of Messines in June 1917. Two months later he was due to be transferred back to Blighty but while bidding farewell to his colleagues, the story goes that he was picking up a bundle of soldiers’ letters to take back with him when a German shell exploded nearby. Watson was once again seriously injured, and would die of his wounds on 5th August 1917, aged 47.
Groups of special memorials form a semi-circle around the Cross…
…to men whose graves are somewhere in this cemetery,…
…but whose exact locations have been lost.
The first group remembers four men ‘Known to be buried in this cemetery’, one of whom, on the far right, is one of only five South African casualties in the cemetery, and another, remembered on the centre headstone,…
…who is ‘Buried in Plot 4 Row E’. All five are April 1918 casualties, 2nd Corporal M. C. Dowding, Mentioned in Despatches, Royal Engineers, being killed in action on 22nd April 1918 aged 39. As La Clytte church made a rare appearance in the background of the previous picture,…
…here’s a picture of French, maybe Belgian, troops milling around the church in 1914,…
…and another of no one doing any milling whatsoever later in the war, the remains of the church now on the right; the tree in the centre of both photos is, I think, the same tree.
Four of the second group of special memorials are also ‘Known to be buried in this cemetery’, and one, second from right, is ‘Believed to be buried in this cemetery’; the only non-mid-April 1918 casualty among them, he died on 20th August 1918. Two more South Africans, both South African Medical Corps men killed on 14th April 1918, as was the South African we saw previously, are remembered here.
The machine gunner on the left of this next group is ‘Buried elsewhere in this cemetery’, the three other men all ‘Known to be buried in this cemetery’, and again all are mid-April 1918 casualties.
The men remembered on the final two groups of special memorials all died between 13th & 23rd April 1918…
…and all are ‘Known to be buried in this cemetery’.
Another section of railway destroyed by German shells, this time to the south west of La Clytte. The accuracy of the German gunners is emphasised by the water-filled shell hole in the foreground.
Aerial photograph taken in May 1918 of the red-shaded area on a map also dated May 1918, the cemetery marked in green.
At which point we shall begin our return journey,…
…back past Plots II & then I, until we reach Plot III, the burials within all original, those at the start of Row B in the centre all from September 1917. This plot is a Passchendaele plot, nearly all the burials men killed in September & October 1917.
The second headstone in Row A in the foreground…
…marks the grave of Private Leonard Mitchell, York & Lancaster Regiment, executed for desertion on 19th September 1917. He was already under a suspended death sentence for desertion when he once again went missing. And got caught. Again.
By coincidence, his brother, Gunner William Henry Mitchell, R.F.A., who was killed just six weeks earlier, on 9th August 1917, is also buried here, in his case at the start of Plot II Row E, his headstone marked in red. The headstone of Major Arthur ‘Patch’ Watson is in the foreground on the right.
Back in Plot III Row A, Private Leonard Mitchell is not to be confused, as I did,…
…with another Mitchell, just a short distance along the same row, who may well, for all I know, have died a hero’s death, and who most certainly was not shot intentionally by his own side. The headstone of Private William James Mitchell, Royal Sussex Regiment, who died on 18th September 1917 aged 19, also remembers a brother, Arthur Thomas Mitchell, another Royal Sussex private, who was killed on 30th June 1916 aged twenty, and whose name can be found on the Loos Memorial.
Plot III Rows D (left) & C (right),…
…the first grave in Row C that of Lieutenant Ronald Young Herbert, R.F.A., ‘Killed near Wytschaete aged 39 years’, according to his headstone,…
…the first of numerous artillerymen buried in Row C, all killed in September or October 1917.
Looking back up Row C, and at Row D behind, you won’t be surprised to hear that over one hundred of the burials in Plot III are Royal Field Artillery or Royal Garrison Artillery.
All the burials in Row D, except for one artilleryman who died on the last day of September,…
…are from October 1917. More guns searching out guns.
Private F. Hunt, Tank Corps, who died on 9th October 1917. The Tank Corps had only been established at the end of July 1917.
The grave at the start of Row D is that of Second Lieutenant John Arthur Holton, R.F.A., killed in action on 4th October 1917 aged 24,…
…and these gunners in Row E are mid-October casualties; over a quarter of the total burials here, 274, are British artillerymen. Note three more Canadian burials further down the row, with a couple in Row F behind.
The artillery burials in Row F are still from October, although slightly later in the month, with a few from early November at the far end.
On to Plot IV, and once again,…
…there are a host of artillery burials to be seen in the first two rows.
All the men buried in Row A are casualties from November & December 1917 or the early spring of 1918. Second from the left,…
…the grave of Captain & Adjutant Talbert Stevenson, M.C. & Bar, The Black Watch,…
…killed by a German sniper on 14th November 1917, aged 22 (this picture is extracted from a British official panoramic photograph),…
…his death noted, as you might expect, in the 4th/5th Bn. The Black Watch war diary. In one of those curious but far from unusual instances, the Bar to his Military Cross was awarded in April 1918, five months later, apparently for the actions that led to his death.
I am not sure what to make of the inscription on the first headstone in the row. ‘For him the weary fight is over, the georious victory mon’. Gunner W. C. McEwan,, R.F.A., was killed in action on 21st October 1917 aged 24, and one might assume that he has had few, if any, visitors over the years. And I’m not laying the blame on the presumably French or Belgian stonemason, either. Someone should have checked, surely?
Row A is the shortest in the plot. The other rows all continue after a substantial gap,…
…the closely packed headstones of the second parts of Rows B & C shaded in red on both photo and cemetery plan extract; we’ll look into the green-shaded area on both later.
GRRFs for Rows A & B. And what is apparent from this form is that all the men in Row A are a continuation of the cemetery’s original burials, as are the first sixteen burials in Row B, while those remaining are all concentration burials, signified by the red ‘C2’ next to the names in the lower half of the right-hand form,…
…which explains the number of identified men in both rows, as seen here, these men all killed in November or December 1917. Incidentally, there’s another horrible error on the headstone of the man buried furthest right of this group.
Reginald Francis John Hollowell, R.F.A., killed in action on 21st December 1917 aged 30, served under the alias of Serjeant J. Campion. But you wouldn’t know it from his headstone. Oh dear.
Looking back along Row A, the headstone closest to the camera…
…marking the grave of Temporary Major Acting Lieutenant Colonel Ambrose Robin Innes-Browne D.S.O., King’s Own Scottish Borderers, formerly Transvaal Scottish Regiment, killed in action at Hill 60 on 10th April 1918. The citation for his D.S.O., published in the London Gazette, just days before his death, on 6th April 1918, reads ‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He was in command of a support battalion during an attack, and on going forward to reconnoitre he found that the advance was completely held up by flanking machine gun fire from a pill box. He at once organized an attack upon it, captured it and several other enemy strong points, and was able to establish a definite line, which he held until relieved. He displayed exceptional qualities of leadership and resource at a very critical time’.
Innes-Browne had served in the Boer War, and in German West Africa in 1915 before being posted back to Europe, where he would command the 6th Bn. King’s Own Scottish Borderers from 9th April 1917.
Quite why there is no mention of his death in the war diary, or any other casualties during their fortnight in the trenches at Hill 60, is a bit strange,…
…particularly as it was he who signed off the war diaries up to the end of March 1918, as shown above, just a few days before his own death.
Row A ends with these burials from April 1918. Behind on the left, the shorter Row B contains the final original burials made in the cemetery,…
…fifteen of the sixteen burials being men killed in March 1918, the majority artillerymen, but including, closest to the camera, an Australian driver and two Canadians, both Canadian Railway Troops, both of whom died on 26th March 1918. Row C behind…
…is made up almost entirely of unknown soldiers,…
…because this is the first row of concentration burials, as are all the graves we have yet to visit, both here and in the remaining two plots,…
…the only identified man among the first part of the row a Hampshire private killed in August 1918, his headstone fifth from the camera in this shot.
His name, E. E. Stephens, appears on both these forms, confirming – as does, once again, the red ‘C2’ against all the burials on the GRRF on the right – that these are all concentration burials brought here after the war for reburial, his identity verified by his identity disc, although only two other men out of twenty seven on the form are identified.
238 unidentified men lie in this cemetery, the majority among these concentrations in Plots IV, V & VI. The identities of half of the burials in Row D are also unknown,…
…only two of these four Royal Engineers at the start of the row being identified, both, as one would assume was likely the case with their two unidentified colleagues, April 1918 casualties. Behind, at the start of Row E,…
…the first grave is that of another chaplain, The Reverend Charles Gustave Clark Meister M.C., Chaplain to the Forces 4th Class (pictured below), who was killed on 18th April 1918, aged 36, when a German shell hit 26th Brigade Headquarters on the Scherpenberg.
With Meister’s grave on the left, the row continues with a machine gunner and a Seaforth Highlander, both killed on the same day, 18th April 1918,…
…and then, after a small gap, this Scottish Borderer private (of Lithuanian descent), killed on 26th September 1918, actually the penultimate burial, by date of death, in the cemetery.
The reason for the gap is explained on this Concentration of Graves Burial Return form. The space was once filled by an American serviceman, his body exhumed for a second time soon after the end of the war and either returned to the U.S.A., or moved to one of the large American cemeteries in France.
More machine gunners, killed towards the end of April 1918, and two Cheshire Regiment privates, both killed on 4th September 1918, at the start of Row F. Perhaps surprisingly,…
…all the graves in the first part of Row F, now in the background, are identified, yet all are concentrations. And although this might suggest these men were all found together, that is not the case here. All died on various dates between April & September 1918, and were exhumed from many different locations, which makes one wonder whether these men were reburied in a line precisely because they were all identified. In the foreground, more unidentified burials in Row E,…
…and yet more, as we reach the end of the first part of the row.
A look back up the first half of the plot, towards the Cross of Sacrifice, with Row D on the left, Row E on the right, and Row F closest to the wall on the far right…
…the same rows seen again in the left background as we look at the continuation of the rows in Plot IV, here with Row C in the foreground. The three identified burials you can see in the row are all August 1918 casualties, and are the only identified men in this second part of Row C. But we are getting slightly ahead of ourselves.
This second section of Plot IV continues the row letters & numbering from the first section, the headstones in the first rows, beginning with Row B in the foreground, touching those on either side. Clearly visible in the foreground, however, a mysterious line in the grass crosses the picture,…
…where the second part of Row A should be, the same area highlighted in green in this shot from earlier, you will remember, and on the accompanying cemetery plan extract.
The vegetation is quite clearly different from the nice grass that surrounds it,…
…undoubtedly evidence of where more headstones once stood; French, you might presume, or even American, as we have already seen that at least one American was once buried here.
This GRRF begins to explain what’s going on, because it is headed Plot 4 Row A, and lists nineteen men purportedly remembered here by special memorials (note that two other names have been crossed out, one being The Reverend Charles Meister M.C., whose actual grave we saw a little earlier).
Taking two of the names on the list, chosen arbitrarily, the cemetery index quite clearly states that both are remembered by a ‘Special memorial between Plots IV. and V. Row A’,…
…seemingly confirmed by the headstone details. Except that we know that they aren’t there, and nor are any of the other men on the list.
Because today, all are remembered among the special memorials we saw earlier around the Cross, although I have no idea when or why they were moved there. Nonetheless, mystery solved.
The first continuation row in Plot IV is therefore Row B, most of the burials unidentified, just five identified infantrymen…
…among the twenty two unknown burials in this part of the row.
Taking one of the five identifed men, Private W. Hyde, South Staffordshire Regiment, killed on 26th April 1918, as an example,…
…this Concentration of Graves form gives the map reference from where his body was exhumed,…
…which was within the blueish shaded square on this July 1918 map – British trenches in red, German in blue – showing La Clytte Military Cemetery now in pink in square 7 on the far left. The brown-shaded feature in the bottom left is Mont Kemmel, and the green shaded squares show from where the majority of the concentration burials now in Plot IV, and just Plot IV, under eighty men in total, were recovered. Quite an area, you will agree. And don’t for a moment think that the men now buried at La Clytte were the only bodies recovered after the war from these areas. Most likely, the majority of the La Clytte reburials were found when the areas marked green were searched for a second or third time post-war, many bodies having already been removed and reburied elsewhere before these men were found.
That was just the way it was for the Graves Registration Units.
Still in Row B, three more South Staffs men, and a man of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, all unidentified,…
…as are most of the men at this end of Row C. Behind, at the end of Row D,…
…the final two burials are two identified men of the Cheshire Regiment who died on 26th April 1918,…
…and although there are a number of emblems to be seen on the remaining headstones,…
…as we have seen, emblems do not necessarily signify identity; neither headstone with a regimental emblem in Row D in the foreground marks an identified burial, and behind in Row E, nine of the eleven graves shown here contain unidentified men, despite five clearly visible emblems.
There are a few identified men in Row D, this headstone, lacking a cross, marking the grave of Private Oswald Bennett, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), killed on 29th April 1915 aged 20,…
…and here a Royal Field Artillery bombardier (centre) who died on 25th April 1915 with, on the far right, another machine gunner who died in May 1918. And no sign anywhere in the row of a Royal Engineers emblem, and thus we are no nearer knowing where the body of Corporal Dowding, the special memorial we saw earlier ‘Buried in Plot 4 Row D’, may lie. Shame.
Just a single identified man, a York & Lancaster Regiment private killed on 29th April 1918, is to be found among the first burials at the start of the second part of Row E,…
…and a look at the relevant exhumation form (dated August 1920) tells us that his body and those of three unknown soldiers, the final four entries on the form, were found together in a shelter,…
…and are now reinterred together here. And any of you who were wondering what the red dot on the earlier original burial site map signified, now you know, as it is where these men’s bodies were found. Row F behind contains a number of Lancashire Fusiliers who died in April 1918,…
…the first in the row killed on 25th April 1918.
And as with the other rows in the plot,…
…few names are to be found on the headstones in Row E,…
…just one identified machine gunner, also killed in May 1918,…
…and a Sherwood Forester killed in April 1918, before we reach the end of the row.
There are a handful of identified burials in the second part of Row F, all of whom died on 25th or 26th April 1918,…
…including another Lancashire Fusilier killed on 25th April 1918 towards the end of the row.
Plot V, like Plot IV, consists of more split rows of headstones, as you can see here,…
…the gaps appearing at apparently arbitrary points along the rows.
Of the graves in the first part of Row A…
…nine are identified, the burials ranging from April 1918 at the far end,…
…to July 1918 at this end.
After a gap, the row continues with five unidentified men, and then two identified men – Yorkshire Regiment & artillery – on the right, the first an April 1918 casualty, the R.F.A. man killed in January 1915,…
…followed by six men of the Royal Garrison Artillery; a second lieutenant & five gunners, with a seventh artilleryman, a New Zealander, next, all casualties from April 1918.
Although if you check the relevant Burial Return forms, and I have highlighted the seven artillerymen in the previous photo (click to enlarge), you will find that the New Zealand gunner (the blue highlight) was, at the time he was exhumed, identified as ‘21683 Gunner S.C.N. Valentine 16 Battery R.F.A. K.I.A. 16/4/18’,…
…and yet he was reburied (third from top) as ‘2/1683 Gunner S. N. Valentine N.Z.F.A. killed on 17/4/1918’,…
…becoming, in the process, one of only three New Zealand soldiers buried in this cemetery. I have no explanation.
Other than the man buried at the start of the row, furthest from the camera, a King’s (Liverpool Regiment) private who died in May 1918, Plot V Row B begins with a number of unidentified men,…
…including three headstones unusually inscribed with ‘A Highland Soldier of the Great War’, followed by ‘A South African Soldier of the Great War’,…
…and further down the row, ‘An Australian Soldier of the Great War’. A number of identified men, such as the Royal Scots private (far left) killed in April 1918, and the machine gunner (far left below) who died in August 1918, are buried further along the row.
The first headstone in Row C features two names,…
…and along with a third name on the second headstone, marks the collective grave of three men of the Worcesters who died in late April 1918. The three headstones centre to right mark a second collective grave, five men of the Duke of Wellington’s who all died on 29th April 1918. Once again, a single Latin cross serves for each of the two collective graves.
29th April 1918 was a day of intense German attacks, according to the 1st/4th Bn. Duke of Wellington’s war diary. Twenty of the twenty five Duke of Wellington’s casualties buried in this cemetery died between 28th & 30th April 1918, most buried here in Plot V.
The row continues with two more Duke of Wellington’s casualties, the first another man killed on 29th April 1918, the next man the day before, with a third second from the right who died on 3rd May,…
…and two more 29th April 1918 Duke of Wellington’s casualties, here on the left, further down the row.
Unknown burials (above & below) towards the end of the row,…
…and more unknown burials towards the end of Row D,…
…although, as we make our way back up the row, there are some identified men, the East Surrey private on the far left at the start of the second section killed in August 1918,…
…the rest all spring 1918 casualties (above & below).
As we have been considering headstone design on occasions this post, note that the unknown British artilleryman’s headstone in the centre features a Latin cross and the emblem at the top, not the usual Broad cross, as seen on the two Royal Garrison Artillery headstones on either side.
Plot V Row D on the right and Rows E & F on the left; the final fifteen headstones in each row in the background are in Plot VI.
Artillerymen in Row E, two R.G.A. gunners who died on 6th May 1918, and a R.F.A. driver, in the centre, who died on 26th January 1915.
Unknown men at the start of the second section of Row E,…
…and more of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment burials mentioned earlier, all killed between 28th & 30th April 1918, including two more who died on 29th April.
Looking down Plot V Rows E & F,…
…and here just at Row F, the first fifteen burials all identified,…
…the majority spring 1918 casualties, such as these men at the start of the row.
There are far fewer identified men in the second part of the row,…
…where once again regimental emblems do not necessarily signify names,…
…although there are three identified men buried here near the start,…
…the first, on the left, another Duke of Wellington’s casualty, although this man died in October 1917, the others both Hampshire Regiment men killed in the summer of 1918.
More unidentified men, including an Australian,…
…with one more identified man, another summer 1918 casualty, on the right here at the end of the row.
And finally, Plot VI, again all concentration burials, and again with many unidentified men among those whose identity is known,…
…six of these men in Row A killed on 7th June 1917 as the Battle of Messines began.
I will not be banging on about the state of some of the headstones I encountered here, because I have done so, and made my point, previously (click here for a reminder). Nonetheless, the headstones of both Corporal W. C. Lamb, a Royal Engineer tunneler who was killed in action at Kemmel on 25th November 1915 aged 30, and the unknown man who lies alongside him here, look, to put it bluntly, bloody awful. Excuse me. And are only going to get worse, surely? By comparison, on the far left…
..Private Hopper’s headstone looks perfect.
Row B, and Private F. Mann, centre left, is one of only five identified South Africans buried in the cemetery – three of whom, as we’ve seen, are remembered by special memorials, the men’s actual burial places within the cemetery no longer known.
Private Mann died on 4th May 1918, and next to him, Company Serjeant Major George Morley, York & Lancaster Regiment, died on 26th April 1918, aged 31.
Most of the burials in Row C are identified men who died in the summer of 1918. On the left,…
…Captain John Hugh Gunner, Hampshire Yeomanry (Carabiniers), attd. Hampshire Regiment, who died of wounds on 9th August 1918 aged 34.
Company Serjeant Major J. Nunn D.C.M., M.M., Hampshire Regiment, who died on 30th June 1918. His D.C.M., gazetted in February 1918, was awarded ‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. With a few men he rushed an enemy strongpoint which threatened to hold up the advance of a whole brigade. Though wounded in the advance, he was the first to reach the objective, and when the enemy counter-attacked he took command of his company and held his position when the troops on both flanks were driven back. His conduct throughout was beyond all praise.’
Summer 1918 casualties near the end of Row C,…
…the final grave in Row C being marked by a most unusual, although self-explanatory, headstone.
After the war seventeen graves, collectively known as Leicester Camp Cemetery, on the road between La Clytte & Reninghelst, were moved here, among them the body of Private William Lumber, one of the two men between whom identification of this grave rests, and whose name appears on the Burial Return form on the right above. The fact that the other soldier, Private H. G. Noyce, has no burial return form and no suggestion of where his body was once buried makes me think that this body is less likely to be him than that of Private Lumber.
Map extract showing all the cemeteries that existed at the end of the war, with La Clytte (No. 878, and not in exactly the correct place) marked as the bright red dot. Immediately to its left, No. 930 (blue dot) is the site from where the graves at Leicester Camp Cemetery were exhumed.
Row D, the few identified men in the row April 1918 casualties (far right),…
…other than the Canadian near the end of the row who died in October 1915.
Row E ends with five unidentified men, although the other ten burials in the row are all identified men who died in 1918, two in April, the others during the summer months.
Only three men in the final row, Row F, are identified, all April 1918 casualties,…
…although a number of the unidentified men’s regiments, and indeed ranks (far left), are known.
And that, if you made it this far, for which you have my thanks,…
…is that. And it’s been a bit of a trawl, I know, and I admire your stamina, but if you can come up with a better way of looking round this cemetery,…
…please don’t bother telling me. I shan’t be changing any of it! And don’t forget, every name you have read as we have toured this cemetery is a man remembered, if only for a brief second or two. Anyway, before we depart, a nice shot of the Stone of Remembrance,…
…because this isn’t. I doubt he’s allowed to park there, really. It does rather spoil the shot. Shame on you Rivaline. ‘Driven by Passion’? Driven by no one. Parked by a twat.
We shall depart through the other entrance,…
…within which we find, having seen the English version on the way in, the French & Flemish versions of the ‘In Perpetuity’ tablet and a blank tablet on the opposite wall, just for balance.
Next post we shall be heading north east, a couple of miles or so,…
…as we take the Ypres road towards Dickebusch. I do hope you’ll come along.