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From Battlefield To Resting Place: The Story Of Tyne Cot Cemetary

Officially known as The Third Battle of Ypres, Passchendaele was one of the bloodiest, and muddiest, battles of WW1.

Nearly 100 years ago to the day, the offensive began. From July 31st 1917, it lasted until the 10th of November that year.

There were over half a million casualties on both sides, and nearly 12,000 Commonwealth servicemen from the battle are laid to rest at Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium.

The site of the cemetery was once itself a bloody battlefield; now it’s the final resting place for many who fought here nearly 100 years ago.

There are still visible reminders of Tyne Cot's bloody past, as Paul Francis of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission told us:

‘Within the cemetery today you can still see some of the elements of the Passchendaele battlefield…There are the German pill boxes after which the cemetery is named. Men of the Northumberland fusiliers thought they looked like their Tyne cottages- hence Tyne Cot’

11,961 Commonwealth servicemen who died in the First World War are buried or commemorated at Tyne Cot Cemetery.

Sadly, 8,373 are unidentified like this one here, and they read ‘A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR KNOWN UNTO GOD’.

The Tyne Cot Memorial makes up the north-eastern boundary of the cemetery.

Within its walls nearly 35,000 servicemen from the United Kingdom and New Zealand who died in the Ypres (EEPR) Salient after the 6th of August 1917 are commemorated.

The site at Tyne Cot was heavily fought over and was captured by the Germans from April to September 1918, before finally being recaptured by the Belgian army, along with Passchendaele itself.

The resting places of the men named here are all unknown.

Lieutenant Colonel Harry Moorhouse and his son Captain Ronald Moorhouse served with the 4th Battalion of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.