JOYCEAN PICS 2011
Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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  Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
  
  
  
  
  
CONTENTS 2011
   1  Leuven IASIL 2011@Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
   2  Leuven (Fr. Louvain/Ger. Lowen): miscellanea
   3  Brussels (Fr. Bruxelles/ Ger. Brussel) (Mid-/Post-Conference Tour)
   4  Antwerp (Du. Antwerpen/ Fr. Anvers) (Post-Conference Tour)
   5  Ypres (Du. Ieper), West Flanders (Post-Conference Tour)
   6  Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing (Post-Conference Tour)
   7  Dublin (Ir. Baile Atha Cliath) and Joyce
   8  Dublin (Ir. Baile Atha Cliath): miscellanea
   9  Urlingford (Ir. Ath na nUrlainn), County Kilkenny
  10  Cashel (Ir. Caiseal), South Tipperary
  11  Amsterdam (I amsterdam)
  12  Den Haag/'s-Gravenhage (Eng. The Hague)

Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing


Sunday 24th July 2011



  Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) burial ground for the dead of World War I in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front.  The cemetery grounds were assigned to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by King Albert I of Belgium in recognition of the sacrifices made by the British Empire in the defense and liberation of Belgium during the war.  It is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world, for any war.  The cemetery and its surrounding memorial are located outside of Passendale, near Zonnebeke in Belgium.  
  The name "Tyne Cot" is said to come from the Northumberland Fusiliers seeing a resemblance between the German concrete pill boxes, which still stand in the middle of the cemetery, and typical Tyneside workers' cottages - Tyne Cots.  
  The cemetery lies on a broad rise in the landscape which overlooks the surrounding countryside.  As such, it was strategically important to both sides fighting in the area.  The area was captured by the 3rd Australian Division and the New Zealand Division, on 4 October 1917 and two days later a cemetery for British and Canadian war dead was begun.  The cemetery was recaptured by German forces on 13 April 1918 and was finally liberated by Belgian forces on 28 September.  After the Armistice in November 1918 the cemetery was massively enlarged from its original 343 graves by concentrating graves from the battlefields, smaller cemeteries nearby and from Langemark.  The Cross of Sacrifice that marks many CWGC cemeteries was built on top of a German pill box in the centre of the cemetery, purportedly at the suggestion of King George V of the United Kingdom, who visited the cemetery in 1922 as it neared completion.  The King's visit, described in the poem "The King's Pilgrimage", included a speech in which he said:

  We can truly say that the whole circuit of the Earth is girdled with the graves of our dead.  In the course of my pilgrimage, I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon Earth through the years to come, than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war.
  -- King George V, 11 May 1922
  
  The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker.  The land on which the cemetery stands is the free gift in perpetuity of the Belgian people to those who are honoured here.
  The cemetery, being so large, has a correspondingly large number of notable graves and memorials, including the grave of Private James Peter Robertson, a Canadian awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in rushing a machine gun emplacement and rescuing two men from under heavy fire.  He was killed saving the second of these men on 6 November 1917.  Another recipient of the Victoria Cross buried in the cemetery is Captain Clarence Smith Jeffries, an Australian who led an assault party and rushed one of the strong points at the First Battle of Passchendaele on 12 October 1917, capturing four machine guns and thirty five prisoners, before running his company forward again. He was planning another attack when he was killed by an enemy gunner.  The personal message at the foot of the headstone of Second Lieutenant Arthur Conway Young is much commented upon.  The message reads "Sacrificed to the fallacy/That war can end war".  
  The stone wall surrounding the cemetery makes up the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing.  On completion of the Menin Gate memorial to the missing in Ypres, it was discovered to be too small to contain all the names as originally planned.  An arbitrary cut-off point of 15 August 1917 was chosen and the names of the UK missing after this date were inscribed on the Tyne Cot memorial instead.  Additionally, the New Zealand contingent of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission declined to have its missing soldiers names listed on the main memorials, choosing instead to have names listed near the appropriate battles.  Tyne Cot was chosen as one of these locations.  Unlike the other New Zealand memorials to its missing, the Tyne Cot New Zealand memorial to the missing is integrated within the Tyne Cot memorial, forming a central aspect in the main memorial wall.  The inscription reads: "Here are recorded the names of officers and men of New Zealand who fell in the Battle of Broodseinde and the First Battle of Passchendaele October 1917 and whose graves are known only unto God".  
  (The memorial contains the names of 33,783 soldiers of the UK forces, plus a further 1,176 New Zealanders.  It was designed by Sir Herbert Baker, with sculptures by Joseph Armitage and Ferdinand Victor Blundstone,who also sculpted part of the Newfoundland National War Memorial.nbsp; (The memorial was unveiled on 20 June 1927 by Sir Gilbert Dyett.  (Extracted from the site of "Wikipedia")

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Tyne Cot
     Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing near Passendale, West Flanders, Belgium.  Used for those deceased 1917-1918; Total burials 11,954, of which 8,367 are unnamed; Unknown burials 101.  Designed by Sir Herbert Baker and established in October 1917.
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
  I found so many small Canadian flags here during a very short stay.
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 (Sunday 24 July) Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) A view from Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) A view from Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing
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 (Sunday 24 July) A view from Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing




        


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