ETAPLES MILITARY CEMETERY

Etaples

Pas de Calais

France

Etaples Roll of Honour - Images and details of those commemorated here

General Directions: Etaples is a town about 27 kilometres south of Boulogne. The Military Cemetery is to the north of the town, on the west side of the road to Boulogne.

During the First World War, the area around Etaples was the scene of immense concentrations of Commonwealth reinforcement camps and hospitals. It was remote from attack, except from aircraft, and accessible by railway from both the northern or the southern battlefields. In 1917, 100,000 troops were camped among the sand dunes and the hospitals, which included eleven general, one stationary, four Red Cross hospitals and a convalescent depot, could deal with 22,000 wounded or sick. In September 1919, ten months after the Armistice, three hospitals and the Q.M.A.A.C. convalescent depot remained. The cemetery contains 10,771 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, the earliest dating from May 1915. 35 of these burials are unidentified. Hospitals were again stationed at Etaples during the Second World War and the cemetery was used for burials from January 1940 until the evacuation at the end of May 1940. After the war, a number of graves were brought into the cemetery from other French burial grounds. Of the 119 Second World War burials, 38 are unidentified. Etaples Military Cemetery also contains 662 Non Commonwealth burials, mainly German, including 6 unidentified. There are also now 5 Non World War service burials here. The cemetery, the largest Commission cemetery in France, was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Victoria Cross: Major Douglas Reynolds, VC, 83rd Bde. Royal Field Artillery, 23/02/1916. Plot I. A. 20. Husband of Mrs. Douglas Reynolds, of Clerkley Court, Leatherhead, Surrey.

Citation: An extract from the "London Gazette," Number 28976, dated 16th Nov., 1914, recording the award of V.C., reads:-"At Le Cateau, on 26th Aug., he took up two teams and limbered up two guns under heavy Artillery and Infantry fire, and though the enemy was within 100 yards, he got one gun away safely. At Pisseloup, on 9th Sept., he reconnoitred at close range, discovered a battery which was holding up the advance and silenced it. He was severely wounded 15th Sept., 1914."

Casualty Details: UK 8819, Canada 1145, Australia 464, New Zealand 260, South Africa 68, India 17, Total Burials: 10773

Etaples Roll of Honour - Images and details of those commemorated here