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 – 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.

Monday Monuments and Memorials – Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension, Abbeville, France

Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension – Graves of QMAAC workers Caswell, Parker, Moores, Blaikley, Watson, Campbell, Grant, Thomasson and Connor

Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps – crest on CWGC graves

Abbeville, on the Somme River northwest of Amiens, was a strategic Allied communications and hospital centre in WW1. In spring and summer 1918, Abbeville was the target of German air raids. In the early morning of 30 May 1918, Abbeville and Doullens were hit. At Abbeville, a bomb hit a protection trench, killing nine women in Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps (QMAAC). The victims were buried with military honours in Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension.