Buttes New British Cemetery
Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in the Ypres Salient, Belgium.
Buttes New British Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground on the Western Front in the Ypres Salient, Belgium. It holds the remains of soldiers who died in the Polygon Wood Sector, many during the winter of 1917 to 1918. The cemetery is notable for its location on an old butte and for the annual Anzac Day memorial service held there.
Quick Facts
- Use dates
- 1914–1918
- Established
- Postwar
- Designer
- Charles Holden
- Nearest town
- Zonnebeke
- West Flanders
- Belgium
- Total
- 2,108
- Unknowns
- 1,677
- By country
- Allied Powers:
- United Kingdom: 1,317
- Australia: 564
- New Zealand: 162
- Canada: 5
- Unknown 30
- By war
- First World War: 2,108
Facts from the source article.
History
Many of the men buried in Buttes New British Cemetery died from conditions in the trenches of the Polygon Wood Sector during the winter of 1917 to 1918. After the war, remains from the area were moved eight kilometres east of Ieper and re-interred at this site, located in the northeastern corner of Polygon Wood. The cemetery takes its name from an old butte that served as a Belgian Army rifle range before the war; on its western side stands the Australian 5th Division memorial, built with help from German prisoners-of-war.
Polygon Wood Cemetery lies nearby. The cemetery contains 2,108 Allied soldiers, most unidentified. Thirty burials are of unknown nationality. Most died in 1917, though some date from 1914, 1916, and 1918.
An Anzac Day service is held annually on 25 April. Bodies are still occasionally found in the area and interred here; in October 2007, five Australian soldiers discovered in 2006 by a drainlayer were buried in a ceremony attended by the Governor-General of Australia and the Prime Minister of New Zealand. The cemetery also includes the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing, designed by English architect Charles Holden, commemorating 383 New Zealand Expeditionary Force soldiers killed between September 1917 and May 1918 with no known grave.
More in Funerary and Memory Sites of the First World War
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