15 replies to this topic

[Perry]

During the battle of Menin Road , the South African Infantry Brigade attacked the line of the Bremen Redoubt .
Their targets included Mitchell Farm , Beck House , Borry Farm , Vampir Farm , Bit Work & Potsdam Farm on the 20th Sept. 1917 .
There front was only about 500 metres wide , they took all the objectives advancing about 250 metres - thus a very concentrated area was involved .
Given that those who were badly wounded & died at aid posts , or later in hospital are buried in cemeteries close to those places , over 300 men who died in the attack are buried in 17 different cemeteries .
Why would they have been " spread " about as they have been ?
Frank Richard Franks was missing after the action & his body only found by an Australian unit & buried at D26 a/c on 3rd Oct. ( 14 days after the attack ) between the Vampir & Potsdam positions .
He was re-buried in Perth ( China Wall ) cemetery on 11th Nov. 1919 , on of 7 South Africans in that cemetery .

[Aurel Sercu]

Perry,

Without having done any research on this particular case ... But my automatic reaction is : the fallen men probably were (hastily) buried in improvised cemeteries along the frontline, and then after Armistice, later moved to bigger cemeteries, or concentration cemeteries. (As you suggest yourself.) Not necessarily in the same period. And don't try to find any logic in why men from cemetery A were moved to concentration cemetery X, and men from cemetery B nearby to cemetery Y or Z far away from X.

Perth Cemetery is a good example. Originally a front-line cemetery, but after Armistice enlarged with the concentration of 2,500 graves from from the surrounding battlefields. I count 28 cemeteries that were moved to Perth Cem, (with between 1 and 94 graves each), but I am sure there may and must have been many many more. (Dozens !)  For all together these 28 cemeteries had 739 graves, not the 2,500 that were moved to Perth Cem. after Armistice !

I guess the other 16 cemeteries were concentration cemeteries too ?

Aurel

[Perry]

Thanks for the suggestion Aurel .
What you say makes sense , but as you suggest makes no logical sense . If they were buried in haste , as they no doubt were - remember , the entire area of the conflict only measured 500x250 metres & as with Frank Franks , they were most likely all buried near D26 a/c .
Then the dead were disinterred & scattered all over Belgium .
I'm sure the authorities had their reasons - I wish I could ask why .

[roel22]

It was a matter of which cemetery was open for reburials at the time a body had to be re-interred. This could be a cemetery nearby, but all too often it wasn't.
Early fifties a few (I believe eight) Germans whose remains were found near Kemmel ended up in the German cemetery in IJsselstein, Holland.

Roel

[Aurel Sercu]

Perry, on 03 August 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

Then the dead were disinterred & scattered all over Belgium .
I'm sure the authorities had their reasons - I wish I could ask why .

Perry,

As Roel said : indeed it also depended on what cemeteries were "open" at the time when the remains were found and meant to be reburied elsewhere. True, it was a relatively small area, approx. 12.5 'hectares' (If I am not wrong 30 acre). But don't be surprised if this area contained several small improvised battlefield cemeteries.

Just curious ... You write "all over Belgium". Could you name some of these 16 other cemeteries ? (Somehow I think that these 17 cemeteries must have been near Ypres ?)

Aurel

[Perry]

Here is the full list of the 17 ( which includes the Ypres - Menin Gate Memorial ) :

Bedford House ; Brandhoek No. 3 ; Dochy Farm ; Dozinghem ; La Brique ; Mendinghem ; Nine Elms ; Perth - China Wall ; Poelcapelle ; Potijze Chateau ;
Potijze Lawn ; Sanctuary Wood ; St. Julien Dressing Station ; Tyne Cot ; White House ; The Menin Gate Memorial ; Ypres Town .
The list was provided by the C.W.G.C. & the above list includes 3 sites with just 1 burial & 5 sites with just 2 burials .
Mrs. Withers of the C.W.G.C. is trying to answer the same question that I have ask the forum to answer , but I'm sure that what the above members sugested is the likely answer .

[Aurel Sercu]

Perry,

In your initial posting you wrote :

(Quote) Given that those who were badly wounded & died at aid posts , or later in hospital are buried in cemeteries close to those places , over 300 men who died in the attack are buried in 17 different cemeteries . Why would they have been " spread " about as they have been ?(Unquote)

Well, the list of 17 cemeteries you gave sure makes things clearer to me. It looks like some (many ?) of the 300 men who died in the attack were not KIA, but died of wounds, and were buried in the cemeteries near the Dressing Stations and Casualty Clearing Stations.

These are the cemeteries that were linked to Dressing Stations and CCSs :
Bedford House Cem.
Brandhoek 3
Dozinghem
La Brique
Mendinghem
Nine Elms
Potyze Chateau
Potyze Lawn
St. Julien Dressing Station

Even if of the over 300 men only 1 or 2 died in each of these, and were buried there, this of course makes the number of 17 understandable.

Also : some of these were enlarged post-Armistice with graves concentrated there from elsewhere, like Bedford House, La Brique, Potyze Chateau, Potyze Lawn, St. Julien DS.

And then there are the cemeeries not linked to a DS or CCS, but where post-Armistice graves were moved to. Like :
Perth Cem.
Sanctuary Wood
Tyne Cot Cem.
White House Cem.

And Dochy Farm Cem. and Poelkapelle British Cem. are even entirely post-Armistice Cemeteries.

I don't know which of these cemeteries has the highest number or a relatively high number of South African Infantry men fallen on 20 Sept. 1917 in the Battle of Menin Road (Tyne Cot Cem. ? Perth Cem. ? Poelkapelle Br. Cem. ? ), but somehow I think that the number of 17 is normal. If we leave aside the cemeteries linked to DSs and CCSs (probably the ones you had in mind when you wrote : 3 sites with 1 burial, 5 with 2, totalling already 8 cemeteries), then only half a dozen or so are left. (The cemeteries that post Armistice were enlarged.)

Other units in other battles fought in a relatively small area might produce similar results as to the number of cemeteries where the fallen were buried in the end.

Aurel

[Perry]

Thank you Aurel , I applaud your considered explanation - I have no doubt that you are quite right , that's why you're the Major General & I'm the Lance Corporal . I look forward to raising more questions for you to answer .

[Phil Evans]

Perry,

I agree with Aurel and Roel.

I tried to replicate your search and of the 273 casualties mine produced, I would guess that just over 200 of them, not surprisingly, have no known grave and are on the Menin Gate Memorial, the remainder having died of wounds along the evacuation train, or their bodies having been recovered over a period of time afterwards. I think what it does show is just how few bodies were either recovered for organised burial in the immediate aftermath, or were subsequently lost / unidentifiable.

I tried a similar exercise for the same day for the London Rifle Brigade, in which I have an interest. They were roughly East of St Julien. Of the 92 casualties returned in my search, 76 are on the Menin Gate Memorial, 12 at Tyne Cot , 2 at New Irish Farm, 1 at Poelcapelle and 1 at Cement House. One man died the following day and is at Dozinghem. So although there is not the spread, proportionately there are similarities.

Phil

[Aurel Sercu]

Phil,

Thanks for confirming a piece of research I did years ago, as to what percentage of the fallen have no known grave. I did that for 31 July 1917, first day of the Battle of Pilkem, for the units that advanced in and from my village (Boezinge) to Pilkem and towards the Steenbeek (Langemark), i.e. the Guards Division, the 38th Division, and the 51st Division.

I counted 894 men in these divisions that fell on that day. Thise KIA and also (a lower number) of DOWs.There may have been more than 894, let's say a total of more than 900 and maybe a total of (almost ?) 1000.

Of these I took 300 at random, and found that 201 of them have no known grave, only a name on the Menin Gate Memorial. That is 2 out of 3, or 66 % !

Your figures are high too (even a little higher) : 200/273 (you wrote that is a guess) is 73 %, and for the LRB 76/92 is more than 80 %.
(Whether yours are higher or lower is not relevant here : important is that they are high too, and close to mine.)

I don't know in how far the situation of the Battle of Menin Road can be compared to the Battle of Pilkem Ridge. I don't know enough about the former. The Battle of Pilkem Ridge had a very fast advance, that first day, up to the Steenbeek. So I was quite surprised that the percentage of unknown graves (66 %) was so high !

I had thought : I can understand that in an area that was heavily fought over for a long period, and with frontlines moving forward and backward all the time, and men fallen in no man's land (like the Boezinge east bank canal site, from summer 1915 till summer 1917), a very high percentage of unknown graves can be expected. (And indeed  it is.) But for an advance that progressed so smoothly and fast like the one from Boezinge to Langemark on July 31st, 1917 ?! After all, when men fell, they could 'easily' be found and identified and given an (improvised) grave by the troops following them, on the day(s) after the advance, when (due to the bad weather) the situation was relatively quiet. Apparently I was wrong.

Aurel

[Perry]

I can give you gentlemen the casualty figures as reported to me by the C.W.G.C . on Thursday , last week :
A total of 352 soldiers of the South African Infantry Brigade died in the attack of which 276 or 78.4% appear on the Menin Gate Memorial .

[Aurel Sercu]

Thanks, Perry.
Again : 78 % having no known grave is an astounding high percentage. And if you subtract from the 352 those who later and elsewhere died of wounds sustained in that battle, the percentage of those who were KIA and have no known grave is even higher !

Aurel

[Perry]

I've just checked the schedule from C.W.G.C. & it list 13 men who died of wounds .

[IRC Kevin]

Aurel Sercu, on 05 August 2012 - 09:08 AM, said:

I had thought : I can understand that in an area that was heavily fought over for a long period, and with frontlines moving forward and backward all the time, and men fallen in no man's land (like the Boezinge east bank canal site, from summer 1915 till summer 1917), a very high percentage of unknown graves can be expected. (And indeed  it is.) But for an advance that progressed so smoothly and fast like the one from Boezinge to Langemark on July 31st, 1917 ?! After all, when men fell, they could 'easily' be found and identified and given an (improvised) grave by the troops following them, on the day(s) after the advance, when (due to the bad weather) the situation was relatively quiet. Apparently I was wrong.

Aurel

I've just worked out some figures for the King's Own Royal Lancasters for 31st July. For the 1/4th Bn, 78% of those killed in action have no known grave and for the 1/5th Bn, it's a lower percentage at 60%. Possibly the war diaries go some way towards explaining the discrepancy.

The diary for the 1/5th describes holding the line on the 2nd August with "the men standing up to their knees in mud and water." On the 3rd they "brought in the bodies of the officers and buried some of the men." Later that day, they were relieved and left the front. The 1/4th however, suffered heavier casualties and received orders to withdraw on the 1st August to the old front line, and thus had no opportunity to go forward to collect their dead. The 1/4th KORL and 1/4th Loyal North Lancs could only manage 150 men between them (the war diary is a little ambiguous here, but seems to mean 150 between both battalions, rather than just KORL) to man the old front line, so I'm sure that resources were concentrated more on the living than the dead. The diary concludes with "the casualties of the Battalion were not as serious as those of other untis in the Brigade."

I suspect that the difficulty of moving the dead meant that those found by other units were buried near to where they fell, and repeated shelling and general condition of the ground would soon lead to their graves becoming lost.

[Aurel Sercu]

Kevin,

Not having the diaries I have no explanation for the discrepancy between 1/4 KORL (78% no known grave) and 1/5 KORL ("only" 60 %). Reading McCarthy Passchendaele, all I can say is that the latter (1/5 KORL advanced to the first line, the Blue line, and the attack was taken over. The former (1/4 KORL) was in a different Brigade (164th) and the objective was advancing to the Green line, later (10.10 am). This action I guess took place in an area closer to the Steenbeek. And muddier too, since it had started to rain, making the place a swamp. I suppose there it was more difficult to collect the dead ?

And yes, I suppose the burial sites where the men buried by other units after them, were (more) heavily and repeatedly shelled, and the graves became lost. (Yet I am thinking now : those that were found later, didn't they have a tag that would enable the remains to be identified ? But of course, I know : IF they were found. And with the shelling, even remains with  an ID tag were not easy to identify.)

Aurel

[jhill]

Without wishing to contradict anything said already, here is a snippet which may add some detail to the way things were done during this very stressful time.  This is from an administrative order issued on 24th October, 1917 by the 4th Canadian Division on coming into The Salient.  It lists the available cemeteries at that time.  Your lot would have had similar orders, and would likely have had a list with mostly the same cemeteries.

As has been mentioned, many casualties would have been buried in the field and would have been reburied after the War.  In other places in The Salient I have read of poorly buried corpses appearing early in 1918, and these would have been reburied according to the then current instructions.

During the battle itself, wounded may have been taken out by different routes depending on the situation at the time, so they may have ended up at different dressing stations.  Burials may have been sent to different cemeteries by the same units depending on circumstances.

I am afraid I am not at all surprised that casualties from one unit ended up in a variety of Cemeteries.

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