Birr Cross Roads Cemetery, Belgium
Posted in War Graves, Trips at 11:00 on 11 November 2020
Birr Cross Roads Cemetery lies on the Menin Road just east of Ypres/Ieper. One of the many Commonwealth War Graves cemeteries surrounding the city.
The cemetery contains 834 burials, 330 of whom are unidentified casualties. There are 504 identified casualties; from the United Kingdom (375,) Australia (115,) New Zealand (9,) Canada (4) and one Belgian.
From Menin Road. Cross of Sacrifice to right of centre, Stone of Remembrance to left of gates:-
Soldiers of the Great War:-
The Belgian grave is of an interpreter to the British Army. It is inscribed, “A la Memoire de De Wattine Camille, L E, Sergent de l’Armee Belge, interprete a l’Armee Britannique. Mort pour la Belgique, la 29 Septembre 1918.” (In memory of De Wattine Camille, L E, Sergeant, Belgian Army, interpreter to the British Army. Died for Belgium, 29/9/1918):-
The nine New Zealanders there include five soldiers from the Maori Battalion.
Corporal W M Karena, New Zealand Maori Battalion, 30/11/1917 and Private H Kanaru, New Zealand Maori Battalion, 30/11/1917:-
Private H R Kereama, New Zealand Maori Battalion, 7/12/1917, aged 26 and Private M Hapuku, New Zealand Maori Battalion, 30/11/1917:-
Private H M Power, New Zealand Maori Battalion, 7/12/1917, aged 22:-
Tags: Ypres, Birr Cross Roads Cemetery, Commonwealth War Graves, First World War, Ieper, Menin Road, New Zealand Maori Battalion, the Great War, World War 1, WW1, WWI
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11 November 2020 at 19:03
[…] « Birr Cross Roads Cemetery, Belgium […]
War Graves – A Son of the Rock -- Jack Deighton
22 April 2021 at 21:30
[…] have been a non-Western Front ruling. There are certainly individual graves of Maori soldiers at Birr Cross Roads Cemetery near Ypres. But New Zealand was of course a Dominion not a colony. (I also remember seeing […]