Location Information
Around the eastern boundary of Tyne Cot Cemetery near the town of Ieper in Belgium stands the Tyne Cot Memorial. It bears the names of some 35,000 men of the British and New Zealand forces who have no known grave, nearly all of whom died between August 1917 and November 1918. This area on the Western Front was the scene of the Third Battle of Ypres. Also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, it was one of the major battles of the First World War. The Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing forms the north-eastern boundary of Tyne Cot Cemetery, which is located 9 kilometres north east of Ieper town centre, on the Tynecotstraat, a road leading from the Zonnebeekseweg (N332). The names of those from United Kingdom units are inscribed on Panels arranged by Regiment under their respective Ranks. The names of those from New Zealand units are inscribed on panels within the New Zealand Memorial Apse located at the centre of the Memorial.

Visiting Information
There are two separate registers for this site - one for Tyne Cot Cemetery and one for the memorial. The memorial register is located in the left hand rotunda. Panel Numbers quoted at the end of each entry relate to the panels dedicated to the Regiment with which the casualty served. In some instances, where a casualty is recorded as attached to another Regiment, his name may appear within their Regimental Panels. Please refer to the on-site Memorial Register Introduction. The Addenda Panel lists those service personnel whose details are awaiting addition to the Regimental Panels. There is parking at the visitor centre. Wheelchair access to this cemetery is possible via an entrance at the rear and is signposted from the car park. For further information regarding wheelchair access, contact the Enquiries Section on 01628 507200.

History
Tyne Cot or Tyne Cottage was a barn near the level crossing on the road from Passchendaele to Broodseinde, named by the Northumberland Fusilier. Around it were a number of blockhouses or ‘pillboxes'.

The barn, which had become the centre of five or six German blockhouses, or pillboxes, was captured by the 3rd Australian Division on 4 October 1917 in the advance on Passchendaele. The Tyne Cot Memorial is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient. Broadly speaking, the Salient stretched from Langemarck in the north to the northern edge in Ploegsteert Wood in the south, but it varied in area and shape throughout the war. The Salient was formed during the First Battle of Ypres in October and November 1914, when a small British Expeditionary Force succeeded in securing the town before the onset of winter, pushing the German forces back to the Passchendaele Ridge. The Second Battle of Ypres began in April 1915 when the Germans released poison gas into the Allied lines north of Ypres. This was the first time gas had been used by either side and the violence of the attack forced an Allied withdrawal and a shortening of the line of defence.

There was little more significant activity on this front until 1917, when in the Third Battle of Ypres an offensive was mounted by Commonwealth forces to divert German attention from a weakened French front further south. The initial attempt in June to dislodge the Germans from the Messines Ridge was a complete success, but the main assault north-eastward, which began at the end of July, quickly became a dogged struggle against determined opposition and the rapidly deteriorating weather. The campaign finally came to a close in November with the capture of Passchendaele. The German offensive of March 1918 met with some initial success, but was eventually checked and repulsed in a combined effort by the Allies in September. The battles of the Ypres Salient claimed many lives on both sides and it quickly became clear that the commemoration of members of the Commonwealth forces with no known grave would have to be divided between several different sites.

Having seen some of the heaviest fighting in the First World War, Ypres was in ruins. The Town Major of Ypres Henry Beckles Willson described it as ‘holy ground’ and felt the area should not be rebuilt but remain a memorial. However, this was not to be and the town was rebuilt. The battles of the Ypres Salient claimed many lives on both sides and it quickly became clear that the commemoration of members of the Commonwealth forces with no known grave would have to be divided between several different sites. The site of the Menin Gate was chosen because of the hundreds of thousands of men who passed through it on their way to the battlefields.

The site of the Menin Gate was chosen because of the hundreds of thousands of men who passed through it on their way to the battlefields. It commemorates those of all Commonwealth nations, except New Zealand, who died in the Salient, in the case of United Kingdom casualties before 16 August 1917 (with some exceptions). Those United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after that date are named on the memorial at Tyne Cot, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war. Other New Zealand casualties are commemorated on memorials at Buttes New British Cemetery and Messines Ridge British Cemetery.

The Tyne Cot Memorial now bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. Incorporated within the Tyne Cot Memorial is the New Zealand Memorial commemorating the names of nearly 1,200 men who gave their lives in the Battle of Broodseinde and the Third Battle of Ypres in October 1917.

The memorial was unveiled by Sir Gilbert Dyett, the Australian soldier and veterans' rights activist, on 20 June 1927.

Our dead commemorated here (click name to view):

Compiled by Ken Austin from information supplied by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. www.cwgc.org.

We make this information freely available to genealogists and Family Historians, but at no time may this information be used on a pay site or sold for profit.