Tyne Cot Cemetery

GPS Coordinates: 50.887113, 2.998543
Location: Zonnebeke, West Flanders
Record count: 3,604

Ownership: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Directions: Vijfwegestraat, 8980 Zonnebeke, Belgium.

Background: 'Tyne Cot' or 'Tyne Cottage' was the name given by the Northumberland Fusiliers to a barn which stood near the level crossing on the Passchendaele-Broodseinde road. The barn, which had become the centre of five or six German blockhouses, or pill-boxes, was captured by the 3rd Australian Division on 4 October 1917, in the advance on Passchendaele.

One of these pill-boxes was unusually large and was used as an advanced dressing station after its capture. From 6 October to the end of March 1918, 343 graves were made, on two sides of it, by the 50th (Northumbrian) and 33rd Divisions, and by two Canadian units. The cemetery was in German hands again from 13 April to 28 September, when it was finally recaptured, with Passchendaele, by the Belgian Army.

Tyne Cot Cemetery was greatly enlarged after the Armistice when remains were brought in from the battlefields of Passchendaele and Langemarck, and from a few small burial grounds.

It is now the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world in terms of burials. The Tyne Cot Memorial forms the north-eastern boundary of the cemetery and commemorates nearly 35,000 servicemen from the United Kingdom and New Zealand who died in the Ypres Salient after 16 August 1917 and whose graves are not known.

Burial Records

• CWGC Burial Records, by Interment.net, May 31, 2017, (3,604 records)

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