The Taelemans´ Blog

Last weekend, Kris and I visited the Tyne Cot Cemetery. It is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of World War I located in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. It is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world, for any war.
The cemetery and its surrounding memorial are located outside of Passchendaele, near Zonnebeke in Belgium.

The memorial is not only known as the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world, but also as a memorial to the missing. Every grave has an emblem, which states from which country the soldier came from. If it is an unknown soldier, the grave is engraved with “known to God”.

We took a walk along the wall with the names of 33,783 soldiers of the UK forces, plus a further 1,176 New Zealanders. A lot of poppies “decorated” the wall of the missing. People have left messages for their since WWI missing family. One of those messages was a poem written by John McCrae. He was a Canadian physician who fought on the Western Front in 1914. ‘In Flanders Fields’ was written during the second battle of Ypres. I think it’s one of the most beautiful poems I’ve ever read…

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.