Tyne Cot Cemetery, nr Passendale, Flanders, Belgium - from the air - postcard

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  Tyne Cot Cemetery, near Passendale, Flanders, Belgium
• Publisher:  Maple Leaf Legacy Project, c.2000s
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

Please ask if you need any other information and I will do the best I can to answer.

------------------------------------------------

Postage & Packing:

UK (incl. IOM, CI & BFPO): 99p

Europe: £1.60

Rest of world (inc. USA etc): £2.75

No additional charges for more than one postcard. You can buy as many postcards from me as you like and you will just pay the fee above once. (If buying postcards with other things such as books, please contact or wait for invoice before paying).

Payment Methods:

UK - PayPal, Cheque (from UK bank) or postal order

Outside UK: PayPal ONLY (unless otherwise stated) please.   NO non-UK currency checks or money orders (sorry).

NOTE: All postcards are sent in brand new stiffened envelopes which I have bought for the task. These are specially made to protect postcards and you may be able to re-use them. In addition there are other costs to sending so the above charge is not just for the stamp!

I will give a full refund if you are not fully satisfied with the postcard.

----------------------------------------------

Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

*************

Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) burial ground for the dead of the First World War in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. The cemetery grounds were assigned to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by King Albert I of Belgium in recognition of the sacrifices made by the British Empire in the defence and liberation of Belgium during the war. It is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world, for any war. The cemetery and its surrounding memorial are located outside of Passendale, near Zonnebeke in Belgium.

The name ""Tyne Cot"" is said to come from the Northumberland Fusiliers seeing a resemblance between the German concrete pill boxes, which still stand in the middle of the cemetery, and typical Tyneside workers' cottages - Tyne Cots.^[2]

The cemetery lies on a broad rise in the landscape which overlooks the surrounding countryside. As such, it was strategically important to both sides fighting in the area. The area was captured by the 3rd Australian Division and the New Zealand Division, on 4 October 1917 and two days later a cemetery for British and Canadian war dead was begun. The cemetery was recaptured by German forces on 13 April 1918 and was finally liberated by Belgian forces on 28 September.^[3]

After the Armistice in November 1918, the cemetery was greatly enlarged from its original 343 graves^[3] by concentrating graves from the battlefields, smaller cemeteries nearby and from Langemark.^[1]

The Cross of Sacrifice that marks many CWGC cemeteries was built on top of a German pill box in the centre of the cemetery, purportedly at the suggestion of King George V, who visited the cemetery in 1922 as it neared completion.^[1] The King's visit, described in the poem The King's Pilgrimage, included a speech in which he said:

We can truly say that the whole circuit of the Earth is girdled with the graves of our dead. In the course of my pilgrimage, I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon Earth through the years to come, than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war.

—King George V, 11 May 1922^[4]

The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker. The land on which the cemetery stands is the free gift in perpetuity of the Belgian people to those who are honoured here.^[5]

The cemetery, being so large, has a correspondingly large number of notable graves and memorials, including the grave of Private James Peter Robertson, a Canadian awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in rushing a machine gun emplacement and rescuing two men from under heavy fire. He was killed saving the second of these men on 6 November 1917.^[1]

Another recipient of the Victoria Cross buried in the cemetery is Captain Clarence Smith Jeffries, an Australian who led an assault party and rushed one of the strong points at the First Battle of Passchendaele on 12 October 1917, capturing four machine guns and thirty five prisoners, before running his company forward again. He was planning another attack when he was killed by an enemy gunner.

The personal message at the foot of the headstone of Second Lieutenant Arthur Conway Young is much commented upon. The message reads ""Sacrificed to the fallacy/That war can end war""^[1]

Also at Tyne Cot, next to the Cross of Sacfirice on top of an old german pillbox in the middle of the cemetary, there are 4 german graves, with the men buried there to show that there is equality in death, and to try and show that all soldiers that died in the war were the same, just on different sides of the fight, to try and signify that the fight was over, that they weren't any different to any of the other men buried there.

type=printed postcards

theme=topographical: rest of the world

sub-theme=europe

county/ country=belgium

number of items=single

period=1945 - present

postage condition=unposted