Monday Monuments and Memorials – Commonwealth Memorial Tablet, Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver

Commonwealth War Graves Commission replica tablet in Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver

Starting in 1923 and through to 1936, the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission erected memorial tablets in several French and Belgian cathedrals, in memory of the British Empire dead of WW1. A similar tablet was unveiled in Westminster Abbey, London in 1926.

Other countries wanted one. Two replica tablets were purchased in Canada. One (pictured here) was unveiled in Christ Church Cathedral on 11 November 1928, the 10^th anniversary of the Armistice. The original inscription has since been revised to include WW2 and the Korean War, and to update “British Empire” to “Commonwealth.”

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Quatre-Vents Military Cemetery, Estrée-Cauchy, France

Private Henry Hesey Kerr, Quatre-Vents Military Cemetery

Gunner Pittam Singh, Quatre-Vents Military Cemetery

Private Victor Hugo Sørensen, Quatre-Vents Military Cemetery

Every soldier tells a story. Some died of battle wounds, some were shot at dawn.

The area near Estrée-Cauchy was used by dressing stations for most of WW1, first by the French and then by British field ambulances. British, Canadian, French, German, Indian and South African soldiers were buried in Quatre-Vents. French and German bodies were moved to other cemeteries after the war, leaving 137 identified casualties in the burial ground enclosed by a low wall in the middle of a farmer’s field. Let’s look at three.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – James Wilson and Côme Laliberté, Poperinghe New Military Cemetery, Belgium

Graves of James Wilson and Côme Laliberté, Poperinghe New Military Cemetery

Every soldier tells a story.

Twenty-five Canadian soldiers were executed for military offences in WW1 – court martialled and shot at dawn. Two were found guilty of murder, one of cowardice, 22 of desertion. Privates Côme Laliberté and James Wilson were both shot for desertion. They are buried side by side at Poperinghe New Military Cemetery.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Menin Gate, Ieper (Ypres), Belgium

Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, Ieper, Belgium

Menin Gate: Here are recorded names of officers and men who fell in Ypres Salient, but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death

The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is one of four memorials to Commonwealth soldiers killed on the battlefield in the Ypres Salient and who have no known grave. The memorial names 54,389 officers and men from Australian, British, Canadian, Indian and South African Forces who fell in the Salient before 16 August 1917. (New Zealand and Newfoundland are memorialized elsewhere.)

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Tyne Cot Cemetery and Memorial, Zonnebeke, Belgium

Cross of Sacrifice, Tyne Cot Cemetery, Belgium

Tyne Cot Memorial and Pavillion, Belgium

New Zealand Memorial on Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium

With more than 11,900 who died in WW1 buried or commemorated, Tyne Cot Cemetery is the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world. More than 8,370 of the burials are unidentified.

The area was captured from the Germans in October 1917. One of the German blockhouses was then used as an advanced dressing station. The cemetery was to bury those who did not survive their wounds, about 350 in all. Following the Armistice, bodies from several smaller nearby cemeteries were moved to Tyne Cot. These include many of those killed in the Battles of Langemarck and Passchendaele.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Australian National Memorial, Villers–Bretonneux, France

Australian National Memorial, Villers–Bretonneux, France – entrance to tower

Australian National Memorial tower, Villers–Bretonneux, France

Australian National Memorial in Villers–Bretonneux Military Cemetery, France

This Friday, 25 April, is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand, a national day of remembrance for their nationals killed in WW1 and subsequent wars. The Australian National Memorial in Villers–Bretonneux Military Cemetery, near Fouilloy, France, is the focus of Australian commemorations on the Western Front.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Étaples Military Cemetery, Étaples, France

Crewdson, Croydale, Hallam, Luker, Matthews and McArthur – women buried in Étaples Military Cemetery

Nisbet, Page, Routledge, Smith, Wakefield, and Whittaker – women buried in Étaples Military Cemetery

Canadian nurse Matilda Green, buried in Étaples Military Cemetery, France

Wife and husband – Florence and Albert Grover – buried in Étaples Military Cemetery

Étaples Military Cemetery is the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in France, with more than 10,000 burials from WW1. Twenty women are buried there, more than in any other CWGC cemetery on the Western Front. Étaples, a port town south of Boulogne, served as an Allied training base, supply depot, prisoner detention centre, and “Hospital City” during WW1.

Six of the women were killed in action. The others died of illness, mostly pneumonia or influenza.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Commonwealth Memorial Tablets, France

Imperial (Commonwealth) War Graves Commission memorial tablet in Amiens Cathedral

Imperial (Commonwealth) War Graves Commission memorial tablet in Soissons Cathedral

Imperial (Commonwealth) War Graves Commission memorial tablet in Beauvais Cathedral

Imperial (Commonwealth) War Graves Commission memorial tablet in Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris

Starting in 1923 and through to 1936, the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission erected memorial tablets in several French and Belgian cathedrals, in memory of the British Empire dead of WW1.

The first of these was placed in Amiens Cathedral, bearing the Royal Coat of Arms and dedicated to the 600,000 men of the armies of Great Britain and Ireland. Subsequent tablets incorporated the arms or insignia of Australia, Canada, India, Newfoundland, New Zealand and South Africa.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Terlincthun British Cemetery, Wimille, France

Napoleon on the Colonne de la Grande Armée, watching over Terlincthun British Cemetery

Terlincthun – Special Memorial to 51 soldiers’ bodies found in 1982

Graves of Barrow, Ingram, King, McKay & Young – 5 of 9 women buried in Terlincthun

Terlincthun – memorial to 6 soldiers whose graves were lost

Terlincthun – graves of German prisoners of war

Terlincthun, between Boulogne and Wimereux, was along the line of hospitals and rest camps established near the coast of France during WW1. Terlincthun British Cemetery was begun June 1918. The central path of the cemetery aligns with the nearby Colonne de la Grande Armée, so the statue of Napoleon appears to be keeping watch over those buried there.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – St Sever Cemeteries, Rouen, France

St Sever Cemetery, Rouen – graves of Branfoot, Dickson, Knox, Pearton, Riggall & Smith Lee

St Sever Cemetery Extension – graves of Armstrong, Bousfield, Gosling, Johnston, Llewellyn & Steele

St Sever Cemetery and St Sever Cemetery Extension are located in a large communal cemetery in the southern Rouen suburbs, near the sites of several WW1 Allied hospitals and camps.* WW1 burials from Commonwealth forces number 11430 in the cemetery and cemetery extension.

Looking for clusters of women’s war graves? Look no further than the hospital sites. The seven women buried in St Sever Cemetery and the six buried in St Sever Cemetery Extension all died of illness or illness-related accident. Two were nursing sisters, six were VADs, three worked with Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps, one with the YMCA, and one was a civilian volunteer.