Battlefield Visits

Tyne Cot

Tyne Cot is the Biggest British/Commonwealth cemetery in Belgium, containing around 12,000 graves. There are a further 33,000 names on the surrounding walls. The main thrust of the attack on the infamous village of Passchendaele took place in this area between October and November 1917.  There are one or two photos of Passchendaele taken from the cemetery, to give an insight of the ground still to cover once Tyne Cot had been secured. That ground was a complex system of trenches that the Germans had been told to hold at all costs. Note the two concrete blockhouses within the cemetery. These two buildings were linked by a trench system and both had two machine guns positioned within. The slaughter caused by the arc of fire from the two blockhouses was unimaginable. Tyne Cot got its name from the Newcastle/Northumberland soldiers who were trying to take it. A small row of cottages that stood where the cemetery is now, reminded them of their homes on the Tyne River . Note the few graves in the centre of the cemetery. These were the first graves dug in the cemetery and were dug when the fighting was still going on. Once you visit Tyne Cot and look back towards where the allies struggled up through the mud and filth to take the blockhouses, it is difficult to imagine the thousands of bodies that still lie in the fields opposite. Tyne Cot, once visited, you will never forget the experience.


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