Kemmel

Suffolk CWGC

The cemetery was founded by Commonwealth troops in March and April 1915. It was then disused, except for one 1917 burial, until October 1918. The cemetery was founded under the name "Cheapside Cemetery" by the Suffolk Regiment. The October 1918 burials were of soldiers from the York and Lancaster Regiment who had been killed the previous April. There are now 48 buried here.

The cemetery was designed by J R Truelove who also worked on the Tyne Cot memorial to the missing.

Godezonne CWGC

The cemetery was founded in February 1915 by the Royal Scots and Middlesex Regiments in the garden of the original Godezonne Farm and was used again in 1916 for three more burials and again after the Armistice to concentrate battlefield burials from the north and the east.

Elzenwalle Brasserie CWGC

The cemetery was started in February 1915, formed from eight regimental burial grounds. The graves are of individual soldiers killed holding the line of the trenches during the long stalemate of the front and the new forward line after the Battle of Messines. The name itself comes from the brewery opposite the road.

Ridge Wood Military CWGC

The name of the cemetery is actually misspelt on the stone.

The cemetery is located in Voormezeele, West Flanders, Belgium, in the Ypres Salient of the Western Front and was established in May 1915 for front line troops defending the area. The cemetery was used by the Royal Irish Rifles, the Durham Light Infantry and Canadian battalions.

The cemetery is in a dip behind a ridge that was the site of a wood. In the Spring Offensive of 1918, German forces pushed the front line on to the ridge, being moved back in July, before being swept away completely later in the year during the Hundred Days Offensive by the 6th and 33rd Divisions.

Of the 621 burials at the site, 292 are from Canada, 280 from the United Kingdom, 44 from Australia and 3 from New Zealand, in addition to two from Germany. The cemetery previously contained graves of a number of French soldiers, but these were concentrated elsewhere later.

Lindenhoek Chalet CWGC

This military cemetery is about five miles west of Ypres from the Kemmelseweg (N331) connecting Ypres to Kemmel.

67 of the 315 here are unidentified.

After getting directions from the Tourist office in Heuvelland, I turned left at the roundabout on the Kemmelseweg (N331) and went north towards Ypres.

La Laiterie CWGC

 

About seven kilometres south of Ypres is this cemetery, final resting place for 751 Commonwealth servicemen, of whom 571 are identified. The cemetery had been named after a dairy farm and was begun in November 1914 and used until October 1918 by units holding this sector of the front.

Memorial to the American 27th and 30th Divisions near Vierstraat

This large white Rocheret stone monument set up in 1929 commemorates the 27th and 30th American Divisions who fought in August and September 1918. Around 1,300 from the 27th Division and 800 from the 30th Division died during this engagement, and the monument stands in the middle of the area fought over.

Demarcation Stone

Near the approaching American memorial seen on the left side of the road is this Demarcation stone surmounted by a French helmet.

One can still faintly read the legend Kemmel.

Kemmel Hill after the war and today

Not far from the demarcation stone is the French ossuary at the foot of Mont Kemmel, shown before and after the memorial stone was erected in the early 1920s. The ossuary contains the remains of 5 294 soldiers, all but 57 of them unknown. Most of these soldiers fell in the April 25, 1917 Battle of Mount Kemmel in which the French lost this strategically important hill to the Germans and Ypres was almost captured.

Then and now
 

On top is this French memorial, the Mémorial aux Soldats Français 1914-1918, which commemorates those French units engaged in the Battles for Mont Kemmel between 15 and 30 April 1918. This 16 metre high French monument shows Nike, the goddess of victory, looking out towards the area where the French fought. It was unveiled in 1932 by Pétain. On 25 April 1918 a single French Division, which had only taken over the position a week beforehand, found itself opposed by three and a half German Divisions. An hour of furious bombardment was considered sufficient by the Germans and at 06:00 hours they launched their infantry into the attack. By 07:10 hours Mont Kemmel was theirs and by 10:30 hours it was all over. The hill which had remained in Allied hands for four years had been taken by a spectacular display of brute force. Even the German airforce had joined in with 96 aircraft dropping 700 bombs and machine gunning the French positions as the Leib Regiment of the élite Alpine Corps stormed forward.

Mont Kemmel in 1918. One can see the results of constant artillery bombardment

Kemmel No.1 French Cemetery 

 

This cemetery is unusual for having unknown origins, having been discovered by the French after the Armistice and contained the bodies of Commonwealth, French and German troops. Despite its name, the French graves were removed to the ossuary and the large French cemetery at Potijze, leaving the Commonwealth and German graves. The cemetery was enlarged by concentrating nearby battlefield graves and three British graves, two from a local churchyard and one from a nearby German cemetery. Also included in the concentration were more German graves found in the former battlefields by the Belgians.

Kemmel Chateau Military Cemetery

This cemetery was established on the north side of the grounds of Kemmel Chateau north-east of Kemmel village in December 1914 and continued to be used by divisions fighting on the southern sectors of the Belgian front until March 1918, when after fierce fighting involving both Commonwealth and French forces, the village and cemetery fell into German hands in late April. The cemetery was retaken later in the year, but in the interval it was badly shelled and the old chateau destroyed. The resting places of 1135 men of the Empire lie here- 1030 British, 80 Canadian, 24 Australians and one New Zealander.

 The graves of two men buried here 'shot at dawn'  for desertion in 1917- Private Stanley Stewart of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers, executed 29viii and Private James Smith, 17th Battalion, The King’s (Liverpool Regiment), executed 5ix. The latter had been the subject of a play, "Early One Morning", written by Bolton playwright Les Smith and first performed there on October 22, 1998 to mark the 80th anniversary of the armistice. He had almost lost his life on the Somme when, on 11 October 1916, a massive German artillery shell buried him alive on the Transloy ridge, with bits of his friends around him, and shrapnel created a large deep wound on his right shoulder. According to his sister, it was big enough to put a fist in. He was rescued and taken home to Townleys hospital in Bolton, but in a very poor mental and physical state from which he never recovered. The shocks and horrors of the battles that he had seen had damaged him to such an extent that he was clearly unfit for further service. Sixteen days after returning to the Front, he left his post without orders. On 29 December 1916, he was court-martialed for a breach of military discipline and ordered to do 90 days' field punishment. On 15 July 1917, just before the battle of Passchendaele, he was court-martialed for a second time for going absent without leave. He was only 26 years old when executed.

Pillbox and crater along the Dammstrasse to Bayershof (White Chateau)

A British pillbox; behind is the Bayershof German Headquarters:

Bayershof (White Chateau)

This French memorial erected in 1935 at Bayernwald is dedicated to Lieutenant Lasnier the 11 non-commissioned officers, 174 corporals and men of the 1st French Battalion on foot who died here between the 3rd and the 15th of November 1914. 

Nearby is what to the Allies was known as Croonaert Wood and to the Germans 'Bayernwald' because of the Bavarian troops stationed there - Adolf Hitler served here in 1914-1915, and was awarded an Iron Cross nearby. Private Hitler, of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment, was lightly wounded here on November 15, 1914 whilst rescuing his Lieutenant. He painted "Painting from Croonaert" He returned here on June 1, 1940 as Leader of the German Reich.

Displays along the road allow one to compare the panorama then and now from the German positions.

German trenches behind.