Tyne Cot Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing |
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Tyne Cot Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing near the village of Paschendaele and Zonnebeke, West-Vlaanderen is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of World War 1 in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front and is the resting place of 11,954 soldiers of the Commonwealth Forces who lost their lives during the four year period from October 1914 to September 1918 inclusive. The Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing forms the north-eastern boundary of Tyne Cot Cemetery and contains the names of 33,783 soldiers of the British forces, plus a further 1,176 New Zealanders. It is the largest Commonwealth military cemetery in the world. Tyne Cot Cemetery is located 9 kilometres north east of Leper town centre, on the Tynecotstraat, a road leading from the Zonnebeekseweg (N332). The cemetery grounds were assigned to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by King Albert 1 of Belgium in recognition of the sacrifices made by the British Empire during the war. The Tyne Cot Memorial is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient which stretched from Langemarck in the north to Ploegsteert Wood in the south, but it varied in area and shape throughout the war. The Salient was formed during the First Battle of Ypres in October and November 1914, when a small British Expeditionary Force succeeded in securing the town before the onset of winter, pushing the German forces back to the Passchendaele Ridge. |
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