Image above By Score Beethoven - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ploegsteert Memorial

Hainaut, Belgium

The inscription on the memorial reads:

To the glory of god and to the memory of 11447 Officers and men of the forces of the British Empire, who fell fighting in the years 1914-1918 between the River Douve and the towns of Estaires and Furnes, whose names are here recorded but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.

Image Right - Ploegteert Memorial - Courtesy of WW1 Cemeteries

Including

Berks Cemetery Extension

Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) Cemetery

Ploegsteert Churchyard

Ploegsteert Wood Military Cemetery

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The Ploegsteert Memorial is located in Berks Cemetery Extension, 12.5 Kms south of Ieper town centre, on the N365 leading from Ieper to Mesen (Messines), Ploegsteert and on to Armentieres.

The Ploegsteert Memorial commemorates more than 11,000 servicemen of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in this sector during the First World War and have no known grave. The memorial serves the area from the line Caestre-Dranoutre-Warneton to the north, to Haverskerque-Estaires-Fournes to the south, including the towns of Hazebrouck, Merville, Bailleul and Armentieres, the Forest of Nieppe, and Ploegsteert Wood.
Most of those commemorated by the memorial did not die in major offensives; most were killed in the course of the day-to-day trench warfare or in small scale set engagements, usually carried out in support of the major attacks taking place elsewhere.

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Berks Cemetery Extension Berks Cemetery Extension was begun in June 1916 and used continuously until September 1917.

Image Courtesy of WW1 Cemeteries © Geerhard Joos

At the Armistice, the extension comprised Plot I only, but Plots II and III were added in 1930 when graves were brought in from Rosenberg Chateau Military Cemetery and Extension, about 1 Km to the north-west, when it was established that these sites could not be acquired in perpetuity. Rosenberg Chateau Military Cemetery was used by fighting units from November 1914 to August 1916. The extension was begun in May 1916 and used until March 1918. Together, the Rosenberg Chateau cemetery and extension were sometimes referred to as 'Red Lodge'.
Berks Cemetery Extension contains 876 First World War burials.

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Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) Cemetery Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) Cemetery is separated from Berks Cemetery Extension by a road.

Image left By Wernervc - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

It was begun in April 1915 by the 1st/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment and was used at intervals until November 1917. Hyde Park Corner was a road junction to the north of Ploegsteert Wood.
The cemetery contains 83 Commonwealth burials of the First World War and four German war graves

The cemetery, cemetery extension and memorial were designed by Harold Chalton Bradshaw, with sculpture by Gilbert Ledward. The memorial was unveiled by the Duke of Brabant on 7 June 1931.

Above Images By Wernervc - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ploegsteert Churchyard contains nine Commonwealth burials of the First World War, made between October 1914 and February 1915.

• Lieutenant Herbert Beaumont BOGGS 26 Feb 1915
• Captain Eric John Western DOLPHIN 7 Nov 1914
• Captain Reginald Wickham HARLAND 30 Oct 1914
• Private CE HORNE 18 Nov 1914
• Captain Arthur Paget KNOCKER 8 Feb 1915
• 2nd Lieutenant Richard John LUMLEY 17 Oct 1914
• Major George Hastings PARKER 19 Dec 1914
• Private Thomas SUTTON 26 feb 1915
• Lieutenant William Douglas Maclean TRIMMER 30 Oct 1914

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Ploegsteert Wood Military Cemetery

Image right - The original uploader was Redvers at English Wikipedia. - Own work by the original uploader, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia

Ploegsteert Wood Military Cemetery was made by the enclosure of a number of small regimental cemeteries.

Plot II was originally the Somerset Light Infantry Cemetery, made by the 1st Battalion in December 1914. The 32 graves it contains, as well as ten in Plot I, are from that battalion.
Plot IV, the Bucks Cemetery was made by the 1st/1st Buckinghamshire Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, in April 1915. 11 of the 20 graves it contains are from that battalion.
Plot III contains 16 graves of the 1/5th Gloucesters, made between April and May 1915. There are12 graves of the 8th Loyal North Lancs from October to December 1915 in Plots III and I there are. However, these plots were known as Canadian Cemetery, Strand from the 28 Canadian graves of June to October 1915 in Plot III, and from the trench running nearby.
The Ploegsteert Wood Military Cemetery as a whole was used sparingly in 1916, and again by the New Zealand Division in July and August 1917. It was in German hands between 10 April and 29 September 1918.
Ploegsteert Wood Military Cemetery contains 164 First World War burials.
The cemetery was designed by W H Cowlishaw.

References, Sources and Further Reading

• Berks Cemetery Extension - WW1 Cemeteries
• Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) Cemetery - CWGC
• Berks Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery Extension - WIKI
• hydeparkcornerroyalberkscemetery.htm Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) Cemetery - WW1 Cemeteries
• Hyde Park Corner (Royal Berks) Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery WIKI
• Ploegsteert Churchyard - WW1 Cemeteries
• Ploegsteert Memorial - Find-a-Grave
• 20MEMORIAL Ploegsteert Memorial - CWGC
• Ploegsteert Memorial - WW1 Cemeteries
• Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing - WIKI
• Ploegsteert Wood Military Cemetery - CWGC
• ploegsteertwoodmilitarycemetery.htm Ploegsteert Wood Military Cemetery - WW1 Cemeteries
• [http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/51601/PLOEGSTEERT%20CH... Ploegsteert Churchyard - CWGC]