Brandhoek New Military Cemetery

Brandhoek New Military Cemetery. Authors image.

As the Brandhoek Military Cemetery had become full this cemetery was begun in anticipation of high casualties from Third Ypres. It was used by the 32nd, 44th and 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing Stations. This cemetery remained open until late August 1917 when it to became full.

A CCS could be found anywhere from 8 to 15 miles from the front line. Brandhoek CCS, which had opened in mid-1915, was located less than 10,000 yards from the front line. In July 1917, it had become a Field Ambulance incorporating CCS’s 32, 44, and 3 Australian. It was shelled on 21 August 1917 and this was recorded by Lt. Col. Arthur Marin-Leake VC in the 46th Field Ambulance War Dairy: 'About 11am today shelling began in this neighbourhood. Two shells fell in our area close to the building. There were lots of patients about at the time, but nobody was hurt; this is to be accounted for by the wet and soft ground where the shells pitched. Shells have dropped in the three CCS, and Number 44 has had a nurse and orderly killed. The shelling continued and off all day, mostly near the Railway. CCS evacuated in the evening'. Brandhoek was abandoned on 25 August and moved to Remy Siding (Lijssenthoek). The nurse killed was Staff Nurse Nellie Spindler along with 44 others. She is buried in Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery. The experience of large numbers of battle casualties led to the grouping of two or three CCS’s together as we have seen with Brandhoek. The distribution of the wounded to the CCS was either geographical or according to the Corps engaged. The CCS at Brandhoek performed specialised abdominal, chest, and thigh operations in addition to the removal of shell fragments.

Cemetery Location

All three cemeteries at Brandhoek lie to the west of Vlamertinghe and are on the new road between Poperinge and Ieper. They are visible from the road.

(Linesman Map showing locations of the CCS at Brandhoek)

FALKIRK AND DISTRICT MEN BURIED HERE

Falkirk

41271 Pte John McPartlane

8th Battalion Suffolk Regiment

13.8.17

VI. F. 3

Denny & Dunipace

49986 Sapper James Thomson

74th Field Company, Royal Engineers

31.7.17

III.A.6

Captain Noel Chavasse M.C. D.S.O. V.C and Bar

Royal Army Medical Corps, attached 1/10th (Liverpool Scottish) King’s (Liverpool Regiment), 166th Brigade, 55th (West Lancashire) Division

Son of the Bishop of Liverpool and identical twin brother of Christopher Chavasse O.B.E., M.C. and Croix de Guerre

His headstone is unique in that it has two Victoria Crosses carved upon it.

Marin-Leake was the first man to be awarded a bar to his VC winning his at Zonnebeke and was one of only three men to have won a bar to his VC. The others being Captain Noel Chavasse and Charles Upham of the New Zealand Military Forces. Martin-Leake commanded No.46 Field Ambulance, 15th (Scottish Division) at Red Farm which was located near Brandhoek CCS.

On the 31 July 1917, 2,153 casualties passed through No.46 Field Ambulance. The casualty figure for the period 1 to 2 August totalled 26 officers, 859 other ranks, and 83 prisoners. One of those on 2nd August was Noel Chavasse who was brought to the Field Ambulance as a patient. He was Medical Officer to the 1/10 King’s (Liverpool Regiment), the Liverpool Scottish of the 55th Division. The War Diary of No.46 Field Ambulance does not record if Martin-Leake had seen Chavasse. Dr J A Campbell Colston, an American doctor attached to 46th Field Ambulance recorded seeing Chavasse and he wrote in his diary: 'An Ambulance came up late tonight and in it was Captain Chavasse, VC, RAMC, of the King’s Liverpool Battalions of the 55th Division. His face was unrecognizable, all blackened from a shellburst very near and he seemed to be unconscious, as he had an abdominal wound besides, I did not take him out of the Ambulance which was sent on direct to 32 CCS where he will probably die.' He was indeed fatally wounded, and he died on 4 August. Chavasse won his Bar posthumously, his award of the Bar was announced on 14 September, and was won at Wieltje which is only a few miles from where Martin-Leake had won his.

There are thirteen RAMC men buried in this cemetery two of them, like Noel Chavasse, were officers. Another was a boy soldier serving with the 108th Field Ambulance.

Captain Frank Rhodes Armitage DSO,  RAMC, attached 232nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. Died 30 July 1917, age 34. Grave I.E.8. He was the oldest son of Dr J Auriol Armitage and was born in Edinburgh. He was a school boarder, along with his younger brother Douglas, in Northamptonshire in 1901. He had been educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School, and then went to Cambridge, where he followed in his father’s footsteps to become a doctor. In 1911 he was living at home with his parents, brother and sister, plus four servants at 58, Waterloo Road, Wolverhampton and both he and his father were surgeons. He married Frances Snape in 1913 and they had a daughter who was born in 1915. His brother Douglas also served and is listed on the Loos Memorial to the Missing. The local newspaper The Express & Star reported that he had been in the firing line for two years and ‘had many miraculous escapes from death.’ On 30 July 1917, he was in a dugout along with Captain C. E. Hickman, when a shell landed on the dugout. Captain Hickman received serious injuries to the head.

Capt Hugh Duberley Willis. Authors image

Captain Hugh Duberley Willis, RAMC, attached 3rd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, 7th Infantry Brigade, 25th Division. Died 12 August 1917, age 34. Grave VI.F.12. Son of Captain Horace George and Emily R. Willis, of "The Glenfall," Gloucestershire. They had five children and he was one of four sons. He was educated at Cheltenham College, Trinity College, Stratford-upon-Avon, and graduated from Manchester University in 1913 with a Bachelor of Medicine degree. He was employed for a brief period as a House Surgeon at Manchester Royal Infirmary. He volunteered on the outbreak of war and was gazetted Lieutenant in the RAMC on 10 August 1914 and was then posted to the 3rd Worcestershire Regiment serving with them throughout. On 11 August the Battalion was in the line at Westhoek Ridge with the War Diary recording that during the morning the Chaplain, Captain the Reverend Geoffrey Maynard Evans MC, who had been with the Battalion for over two years, was killed, he is buried at the Divisional Collecting Post Cemetery and Extension, Grave II.E.12 and ‘Capt HD Willis, RAMC, MO of the Battalion mortally wounded.’ He died of his wounds on 12 August.

Boy Soldiers

41378 Private James Aulinne Gray, 108th Field Ambulance, RAMC. Died of wounds 9 August 1917, age 17. Grave III.F.8. Son of Robert and Agnes Gray, of Belfast. According to the entry on his CWGC listing he enlisted at the age of 14. His Epitaph reads: HEAVEN IS FULL OF GAY AND CARELESS FACES NEW-WAKED FROM DREAMS OF DREADFUL THINGS. On the 5 August the War Diary recorded that there was some shelling in their area, some two and half miles south, south east of Watou, from heavy German guns and that ‘6 men of unit gassed and 3 wounded evacuated to CCS.’ In the Ypres Salient, we are drawn to the graves of 6322 Private John Condon, 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Regiment, killed in action in May 1915, age 14 and the youngest known battle casualty of the war, although this is now questioned, and the grave of 5750 Valentine Strudwick, 8th Rifle Brigade, killed in action in January 1916, age 15. Strudwicks grave attracts a great deal of attention because of its location at Essex Farm and that locations association with Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae and the poem ‘In Flanders Fields.’ There are many more ‘Boy Soldiers’ buried across the Salient and who are not remembered and these include three from Falkirk District Private William Jamieson, age 17, Private James Duchart, age 16, and Private Herbert Richmond, age 17. There were many reasons why underage boys enlisted in 1914 and 1915 boredom with their jobs, looking for adventure, and escaping family pressures. The checks on age and qualification to enlist were more relaxed than later in the war. The army preferred younger recruits, there was a history of boy soldiers in the army going back over one hundred years. At Waterloo the army had a number of boy soldiers in their ranks. The army preferred younger recruits as they would follow orders and accept discipline more readily than older men. The boys had a belief in their own indestructibility and were prepared to take more risks. We tend to also forget the number of boys who served in the Royal Navy and we do not seem to have the same passionate response to their service as we do those who fought on the Western Front. With regards to the army, the difference was the sheer number who served on the Western Front and there were more boy soldiers in 1915 than served in Wellington’s army at Waterloo. For further reading on this subject I recommend Richard Van Emden’s excellent book Boy Soldiers of the Great War.

Burials

UK – 514

Australian – 11

Canadian – 6

German – 25