Étaples Military Cemetery
The largest CWGC cemetery in France.
via Wikipedia: Étaples Military Cemetery · see source
Étaples Military Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery located in Étaples, near Boulogne on the north-west coast of France. It holds over 11,500 dead from both World War I and World War II.
Quick Facts
- Use dates
- 1914-18, 1940
- Nearest town
- Étaples, Pas-de-Calais
- Designer
- Sir Edwin Lutyens
- Total
- Over 11,500
- Unknowns
- 73
- By war
- First World War – 10773; Second World War – 119
Facts from the source article.
History
During World War I, Étaples was safe from enemy land attack and had railway links to northern and southern battlefields. The town housed 16 hospitals, a convalescent depot, reinforcement camps for Commonwealth soldiers, and barracks for the French Army. Over 10,000 of the cemetery's dead were World War I casualties who died in Étaples or nearby. The military infrastructure could accommodate about 100,000 troops, making the town a target for German aerial bombing raids. Étaples received the Croix de Guerre in 1920 for withstanding attacks and contributing homes to the war effort. In World War II, Allied hospitals returned, and the cemetery reopened for casualties; 119 men were buried there between January 1940 and the British withdrawal in May of that year.
The cemetery
Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Étaples Military Cemetery is the largest CWGC cemetery in France. It contains remains of soldiers from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and Germany. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has published numbers only for Commonwealth and German dead, though records note a few war graves of other nationalities. Of 10,792 Commonwealth burials, only 73 are unidentified; there are also 658 German burials.
Notable burials
Notable burials include Captain Edward Vivian Birchall, whose philanthropy helped create the National Council for Voluntary Organisations; Private Jim Bonella, a former Aussie Rules footballer; Private Elijah Carey, a former New Zealand trade unionist; Brigadier Edgar William Cox; Lieutenant Colonel William Robert Aufrere Dawson; Captain Noel Forbes Humphreys, a Welsh rugby union footballer; Private Hugh Kerr, a professional soccer player for Manchester United; Nursing Sister Katherine Maud MacDonald, the first Canadian woman killed by enemy activity, during a German air raid in May 1918; Major Douglas Reynolds; and Sergeant Dick Wynn, a professional soccer player for Middlesbrough and Everton.
2003 vandalism
In March 2003, protesters against the Iraq war defaced Étaples Military Cemetery with red paint, scrawling anti-British and anti-American messages. This act sparked outrage in the UK, US, Australia, and France. The French National Assembly called it 'barbaric, monstrous and utterly despicable', and President Chirac sent 'sincere regrets' to the Queen.
More in Funerary and Memory Sites of the First World War
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