Essex Farm Cemetery - Ieper (Ypres), West-Vlaanderen, Belgium
N 50° 52.282 E 002° 52.352
31U E 491030 N 5635528
Next to a dressing station established by the Canadian Field Artillery in 1915 lies now the Essex Farm Cemetery where 1204 soldiers who died in the first World War are buried.
Waymark Code: WM16F8E
Location: West-Vlaanderen, Belgium
Date Posted: 07/19/2022
Views: 10
Between 1915 and 1918, the site where Essex Farm Cemetery is located was a Canadian field artillery dressing station. A small bunker to care for the wounded was set up in 1915 using sandbags, boards and reinforced panels. In the fall and winter of 1916/1917, British engineers fortified and enlarged the field hospital with concrete structures.
The Canadian medical doctor Major John McRae, later lieutenant colonel, served in the field hospital in the spring of 1915 and cared for the wounded of the 1st Canadian Artillery Brigade and the victims of the gas attack of April 22nd, 1915 in Sint Juliaan. Here he wrote the poem "In Flanders Fields" on May 3rd, 1915, which is probably one of the most popular poems about the First World War. The poppy mentioned in the poem became a symbol for the fallen.
In the war years 1915 to 1918 1204 soldiers were buried in the cemetery, 102 could not be identified. After the war the graves were cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the monuments at the entrance and in the cemetery were designed by the architect Sir Reginald Blomfield. The bunker system is still preserved, an information board explains the bunker, gives some historic background and refers to John McRae.
References:
- sign near by the bunker
- Essex Farm Cemetery, entry at cwgc.org (Commonwealth War Graves Commission)
- Essex Farm Cemetery, Wikipedia