The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Memorials are structures that commemorate the servicemen whose bodies or identities where never found or verified. These deaths were, perhaps, even harder to bear for the relatives than those whose husbands or sons had known and marked graves. In certain areas of France or Belgium, it is possible to visit several memorials in a single day. As all the memorials have the names of those missing in the area engraved on them, it is not inconceivable, that in that single day you will have visited memorials representing over 100,000 men. Many visitors believe that these memorials are more moving than the cemeteries, because the dead they commemorate are totally lost.

 

The Tyne Cot Memorial

 

The Tyne Cot Memorial forms the seemingly unending rear wall of the Tyne Cot Cemetery, Passchendaele. This cemetery with nearly 12,000 graves is the largest of all the Commonwealth cemeteries and the memorial at the back of the cemetery has over 35,000 names engraved on it. Tyne Cot along with the Menin Gate are memorials that commemorate the 100,000 soldiers missing in the Ypres Salient.

 

It was felt, that as so many men were to be commemorated, it was desirable and inevitable that there would be a division of the names. It was decided that a date should be chosen to divide the names of the British troops between Ypres and Passchendaele. The date chosen was the 16^th August 1917, when the Battle of Langemarck began. Soldiers, who died before the 16^th August were commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial and those who died after this date, were commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial. Tyne Cot was picked not only because it had the available space, but also, as it was close to the furthest point reached by the Commonwealth armies in Belgium until nearly the end of the War.

 

The memorial has no distinctive central feature, although the Stone of Remembrance and the Cross of Sacrifice are built on top of a German block house.

 

The Menin Gate Memorial

 

The Ypres Memorial spans one of the two main gateways into the City of Ypres [ Ieper ] and is known as the Menin Gate, as it stands on the road connecting the Belgian town of Menin to the city. Before the War, the roadway was flanked by two stone lions with medieval ramparts leading off from each end.

 

As so many Commonwealth soldiers had passed down this road to the battlefields of the Ypres Salient, it was felt to be appropriate, to have the memorial constructed on this site.

 

The memorial itself was designed by Reginald Blomfield and bears the names of over 54,000 Commonwealth troops who died in battle, in that area before the 16^th August 1917, and whose bodies were never found or properly identified.

 

The memorial was unveiled by Field-Marshal Lord Plumer of Messines in the presence of King Albert I of the Belgians on the 24^th July 1927.

 

The main road, which runs under the arch, is closed by the police, every day at 2000 hours, when members of the local fire brigade sound the Last Post. This has happened daily since 1927, except during the German occupation of 1940-1944. The memorial had also been badly damaged during the Second World War, but has since been repaired, although visitors can still see some scars left over from that era.

 

The Thiepval Memorial

The Memorial to the Missing, Thiepval

The Thiepval Memorial stands near the rebuilt village of that name, in the area of the Somme in France. With over 71,000 names commemorated on it, many of them Irishmen, it is the largest memorial built by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The 71,000 dead cover a period from July 1915, when the British Third Army took over from the French, through the Battle of the Somme in 1916 to the 20^th March 1918, the eve of the last great German offensive of the War.

 

The site of the memorial was chosen partly because it was on high ground and partially for its historical associations.

 

Of the positions attacked at the start of the British Somme Offensive on the 1^st July 1916, Thiepval was perhaps the strongest and certainly the most obstinately defended of the Somme villages. On this day alone, nearly 20,000 British troops were killed, more than on any other day, any where.

 

The name of this village is well known in Northern Ireland, as it is close to this area where thousands of men from all nine counties of Ulster died, when the 36^th [Ulster] Division attacked the formidable Schwaben Redoubt. Many of their names are engraved on the Thiepval Memorial along side many of those Irish soldiers from the 16^th [Irish] Division who were killed in the taking of the French villages of Guillemont and Ginchy in the Somme area later on in that year.