Belgium 2015 - Day 5 - 5th Australian Division Memorial, Buttes New British and Polygon Wood Cemeteries

These places are located in the same spot, on the edge of Polygon Wood.

The battle of Polygon Wood was the I ANZAC component of a larger British and dominion operation staged as part of the third battle of Ypres. This operation was the second of the "Plumer battles", a serious of well-planned, limited advances supported by large volumes of artillery, masterminded by the British general Herbert Plumer. The name "Polygon Wood" derived from a young plantation forest that lay along I ANZAC's axis of advance.

The British and dominion advance began on schedule at 5.50 am on the 26th September 1917, with the 4th and 5th Australian Divisions, on the left and right respectively, taking the lead in the I ANZAC sector. The infantry advanced behind a heavy artillery barrage - the noise of this was compared to a roaring bushfire - and they secured most of their objectives without difficulty. To the south, the 15th Brigade, which after its efforts the previous day had been reinforced by two battalions from the 8th, secured not only its own objectives but those allocated to the neighbouring 98th British Brigade. 

The Germans launched several counter-attacks but these were thwarted by the heavy defensive artillery barrages used to protect the infantry consolidating on their objectives; this was a feature of the Plumer battles. The battle cost 5,770 Australian casualties.(awm.gov.au)

The 5th Australian Division Memorial is on the edge of Buttes New British Cemetery, which also contains another New Zealand memorial to the missing. Across the road is the Polygon Wood Cemetery.

First up is the 5th Australian Division Memorial.

The Fifth Division’s tribute to those who fought with it between 1916 and 1918 in France and Belgium is in Polygon Wood, Zonnebeke, near Ieper. This is Australian land, acquired by the division after the war, and the memorial itself, a stone obelisk, sits on a long, tall bank known as the ‘Butte’, approached up a steep flight of steps.

A view of the 5th Australian Division Memorial from the New Zealand Memorial to the missing.

A close up of the 5th Australian Division Memorial up on the Butte, over looking the memorial cairn in Buttes New British Cemetery.

A pano of the Buttes New British Cemetery from the to of the Butte.

This cemetery contains the remains of 2,108 Servicemen of the Commonwealth. Of these burials only 396 were identified for a known grave and headstone. 

The cemetery was established here after the war. Remains of British and Commonwealth soldiers killed in the battlefields around Polygon Wood were brought here for burial by the burial parties clearing the battlefields. Most of the casualties had been killed during the fighting in 1917 in the later stages of the Third Battle of Ypres. 

There are special memorials to 35 Servicemen who could be identified to have been buried in this place but their identified remains could not be established for a specific grave marked with a headstone.(greatwar.co.uk)

Lot's of ANZAC's lie in this cemetery.

The Buttes New British Cemetery (New Zealand) Memorial, which stands in Buttes New British Cemetery, commemorates 378 officers and men of the New Zealand Division who died in the Polygon Wood sector between September 1917 and May 1918, and who have no known grave. The majority died in the trenches, or in working and carrying, and the conditions in the Salient during the winter of 1917-18 must explain the comparatively large number of names on this memorial, which deals with only one set attack on a German position. (CWGC.org)

This is another of the seven New Zealand Memorials to the Missing in France and Belgium remembering to those New Zealand soldiers who died on the Western Front but whose graves are not known

A view of the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing from the 5th Australian Division Memorial

After the First Battle of Passchendaele (12 October), soldiers of the New Zealand Division wintered in the area until February 1918, when they were sent to a rest area, before being transferred to the Somme during the Spring Offensive. Consequently, many of those killed in action or who died of their wounds during this period were buried in the vicinity. (Wikipedia) 

Looking through the New Zealand Memorial

The next day we came back here so Jo could lay a small cross on the grave of Private Alec Lawrence Anderson, 17 Battalion AIF. He was from our home town of Nowra and was 23 yrs when he died on the 20th September 1917. He lived on Junction Street in Nowra. Today Nowra's War Memorial is at the top of Junction Street.

On the way out Jo encountered a friendly local

Literary across the road from the Buttes New British Cemetery and the 5th Division Memorial is Polygon Wood Cemetery . This one is quite interesting as it is a actual cemetery used during the fighting. As such it isn't laid out as regularly as many of the others.

Polygon Wood Cemetery is an irregular front-line cemetery made between August 1917 and April 1918, and used again in September 1918. 

The cemetery contains 107 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 19 of them unidentified. 60 of those buried here served with the New Zealand forces. There is also one German grave within the cemetery.