British Airman - La Laiterie Military Cemetery

La Laiterie Military Cemetery. Authors image

The La Laiterie Military Cemetery, named from a dairy farm which was located nearby, was begun in November 1914 and used until October 1918 by units holding this sector of the front. The different plots were, to a great extent, treated as regimental burial grounds; the majority of the graves in Plots II, III and X, for instance, were those of the 26th, 25th and 24th Canadian Infantry Battalions, respectively, and all but one of the graves in Plot VIII are those of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers, 149th Brigade, 50th (Northumbrian) Division. On 25 April 1918, the cemetery fell into German hands, but it was retaken at the beginning of September. After the Armistice, 200 graves were brought into the cemetery from the battlefields north and north-east of Kemmel.

Royal Air Force

Lieutenant Henry Eric Dolan M.C., Killed in action 12 May 1918, age Grave II.D.8. Son of Alfred Archer Dolan, a mining engineer, and Violet Eliza Edgeworth (née Hanrick) Dolan, 11 Horse Fair, Banbury, Oxford. He had a brother, Gerald. Henry moved to Canada and was working as a Clerk on the outbreak of the war and he enlisted in the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Infantry as a Private with the number 9349. On the Battalions arrival in England Henry was gazetted as a Second Lieutenant and joined  the British Army, Royal Field Artillery on the 20 November 1914, and promoted to Lieutenant on 31 January 1916. He was awarded the Military Cross on 1 January 1917. He transferred to the General List on 31 August 1917 and joined the Royal Flying Corps. In early 1918, he was posted to No.74

SE5.a aircraft. Note that the wartime censor has scratched out the serial numbers but left the squadron markings

Squadron which flew SE.5a aircraft and was assigned to ‘A’ Flight, under the command of Major Edward Corringham ‘Mick’ Mannock, V.C., M.C. & Bar, D.S.O.& two Bars. Mannock had 73 victories to his name although he was officially credited with only 61 when he was shot down by small arms fire from the ground on 26 July 1918. He is listed on the Arras Flying Services Memorial. Dolan scored his first victory on 12 April 1918 when he shot down an Albatros D.V and had scored his seventh victory by 11 May. On the 12 May he took off at 5.35pm and was in combat with an aircraft flown by Leutnant Raven Freiherr von Barnekow of Jasta 20, four miles east of Dickebusch Lake at 6.35pm, and was shot down. He was seen to spiral down and crash near Wulverghem. It is said that Mannock was reduced to tears on hearing of Dolan’s death who had been his most promising protégé. This was Leutnant von Barnekow’s first victory and he went on to have ten more victories. In WWII he was on the staff of General von Doring, his old commander at Jasta 1 and 4. Von Barnekow was also a close friend of Ernst Udet, he met him when they flew with Jasta 4, and when Udet committed suicide in 1941 von Barnekow also shot himself.

Read more about the British airmen buried or commemorated in the Ypres Salient.