The entrance to Dickebusch New Military Cemetery Extension. Note there is no sign of a cemetery name.
If you read the previous post you will know that the New Military Cemetery is on the east (left) side of the road that leads south out of the town of Dickebusch (today, Dikkebus), and the New Military Cemetery Extension is on the western side.
The Stone of Remembrance, inlaid into the boundary wall of the New Military Cemetery,…
…serves for both cemeteries, as does the tablet on the left…
…upon which the names of both cemeteries are inscribed.
The Cross of Sacrifice in the Extension also serves for both cemeteries, and despite the New Military Cemetery being around twice the size of the Extension, there are only seventy seven fewer burials here, the headstones within much closer packed, as you can see.
The New Military Cemetery Extension was first used on 27th May 1917* and, barring two men added in early 1918, was closed in mid-August, by which time 547 men, all but five identified, had been buried here.
*only a dozen 1917 burials were made across the road in the New Military Cemetery after this date.
Unlike the New Military Cemetery, the Extension is divided into plots, four of them in total, two of which are big, and two of which aren’t. The cemetery plan, thanks to our friends at the CWGC, can be viewed here, and this shot shows Plot III, one of the large ones,…
…where the earliest burials are to be found; ten of the first eleven burials, and five further down the row, are men who died on 27th May 1917. We shall return to them later.
On our left on entry, Plot II, Row A in the foreground, with Plot I at the very far end on the left,…
…from where this view looks north back down the length of the cemetery, Plot I Row A in the centre and Row B on the left.
There are three rows, and only around fifty burials, in Plot I, forty of whom died during the second half of July 1917. On the far right of these burials in Row A…
…the grave of Captain George Stephen Pirie, R.A.M.C., killed in action on 24th July 1917, aged 29.
Further along Row A, the graves of Lieutenant J. Marsland M.C., Royal Sussex Regiment (left), & Lieutenant James Allanson Picton M.C., East Surrey Regiment, both of whom died on 23rd July 1917,…
…and four men of the R.F.A. at the end of the row. 253 of the men buried here are artillerymen, not far short of half the total burials.
Row B, the burials all men who died between 22nd & 28th July, and behind, the nine headstones of Row C (the cemetery plan, in error, shows only seven).
Just two men buried here died in 1918, their graves seen here at the start of Row C, the other burials in the row, including three Australians, all late July 1917 casualties.
Plot II Row A,…
…the burials in the row…
…mostly from the latter half of June or early July.
One R.F.A. and three R.G.A. officers, all of whom died on 25th June 1917, at the end of Row B, including, on the far right, Major Percy Robert Murdoch Collins D.S.O., aged 26, commander of the 13th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery,…
…and mid-July casualties towards the other end of the row.
More officers, three from the South Staffs Regiment, two subalterns on either side of a captain, and a D.L.I. subaltern on the left, all killed on 19th July in Row C,…
…and yet more artillerymen, those closest to the camera all killed on 5th July.
The grave of another decorated R.F.A. officer (centre) near the end of Row D, Major Kenneth Mitchell Potter D.S.O., who died on 8th July aged 35, and on the left, and pictured in the inset,…
…Lieutenant Colonel Harold Thomas Belcher D.S.O., R.F.A., killed on 8th July, aged 42. To find two D.S.O. recipients buried next to each other really is most unusual. Belcher had served in the South African War at the turn of the century, where he survived the siege of Ladysmith, and ended the war having been mentioned in dispatches (as he would again in the Great War) and having received a D.S.O. and the Queen’s Medal with six clasps. He had been in France since September 1914 with the exception of a short time when he was recovering from wounds.
More R.F.A. officers in Row D, both killed on 10th July,…
…and another of the 24 Australians buried here, all but one of whom are Australian Field Artillery. Bombardier Arthur William Orchard died of wounds on 15th July.
Three R.F.A. gunners and a driver, two killed on 31st July (right), and two on 1st August, at the start of Row E,…
…and more as the row continues: Gunner Lawrence William Frew Cochrane, R.F.A., died on 31st July aged 21,…
…and, on the left, Serjeant G. Hughes M.M., R.F.A., and on the right, Trumpeter J. D. Gray, R.G.A., both aged 32, killed on 29th & 28th July respectively.
Artillerymen, British & Australian, all August casualties, at the start of Row F,…
…and late July casualties further along the row. Closest to the camera is the grave of Major Gerald Frederick Watson Powell, Kent Cyclist Battalion, who died on 28th July, aged 26.
Plot II Row G, these men all killed between 7th & 9th August.
Cross of Sacrifice. On the right,…
…Australian artillery casualties at the start of Plot III Row G,…
…most of the rest of the burials in the row British artillerymen, and all killed in late July (below) or early August.
More late July burials in Row F,…
…and mid-July artillery burials in Row E, one of the cemetery’s five unidentified men second from the right,…
…with a second further along the row (fourth from right).
The root of the problem in Row E.
Plot III Row D, these burials all from mid-June,…
…including, pictured above his headstone,…
…the grave of Lieutenant Colonel Wigram Clifford D.S.O., Northumberland Fusiliers, killed in action on 20th June 1917, aged 41. Note Wilfred Owen’s ‘old lie’ on his headstone: ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.’
Another unidentified man buried here is this German casualty at the start of Row C, alongside two men killed on 7th June 1917, the first day of the Battle of Messines,…
…with two more 7th June casualties, both second lieutenants, one Middlesex Regiment, the other Royal West Kents, in the centre of this shot.
Still in Row C, three men of the Royal Garrison Artillery who died on 14th June 1917 (the final day of the Battle of Messines),…
…and further along the row, a Royal Engineer driver who died on the same day.
Four Queen’s officers in Row B, all 11th Bn., all killed on 7th June 1917.
The war diary of the 11th Bn. Royal West Surreys (The Queen’s) is worth reading, describing as it does the explosion of the mine at St. Eloi on 7th June 1917, one of the nineteen British mines that exploded simultaneously that morning and heralded the start of the Battle of Messines,…
…and the battalion’s subsequent actions over the next few hours.
The four officers killed are listed at the bottom of the page,…
…their graves shown here in close-up, on the left Second Lieutenant Trice Martin, aged 36, and on the right Lieutenant A. McKenzie, age unknown,…
…and Second Lieutenant T. B. Smith, aged 30, alongside Captain William James Hedley, aged 21.
Twenty nine other ranks lost their lives that day along with the four officers, the wounded amounting to five officers and 157 men. But the day had been an unqualified success for the British, and there had been too few of those in recent times.
Looking back along Plot III Row A,…
…these three R.F.A. casualties in Row A, two gunners and a subaltern, were killed in the first days of June 1917. The family of Gunner Peach, in the centre, presumably requested that his headstone bear no cross, hence the non-standard headstone you see here (compare with those on either side, which are standard R.F.A. headstones).
Further along Row A, this R.F.A. corporal died on 1st June 1917. The American flag? No clue.
A Queen’s private in Plot III Row A, killed in action on 27th May 1917. Buried in the same row as another fourteen men killed the same day,…
…including ten of the first eleven burials in the row, these men are the earliest burials in the extension. The four burials at the start of Row A, and two others further down the row, are men of the 11th Bn. Royal West Kent Regiment who died on 27th May.
In the cemetery’s northern corner, the three short rows of Plot IV,…
…just twenty two headstones in total,…
…are all, barring the three Royal Engineers killed in late July at the start of Row B on the far left,…
…early August casualties.
Exactly half the burials, eleven, are R.F.A. or R.G.A., and there are two Australian artillerymen also buried in the plot.
And that, ladies & gentlemen, concludes our tour of the Dickebusch cemeteries.
Except for the one I have yet to visit. Or, at least, that was the case when I wrote much of this post.
But on my recent Flanders trip, I made sure it was first on my agenda, and we’ll take a look around in due course.
Baldrick bows to the great God of electricity and prays we have enough juice to get home.