Tyne Cot Cemetery

Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium is the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery on the Western Front. It also contains the graves of more New Zealanders than any other cemetery beyond our shores. Tyne Cot occupies part of the strategic high ground from which the Germans looked down across the Allied forces and is a historic site from the Battle of Passchendaele.

Within its flint walls are the graves of almost 12,000 casualties from the First World War, 8300 of them unidentified. The entire rear of the cemetery is occupied by a curved Memorial to the Missing, commemorating a further 35,000 soldiers who have no known graves. In total the cemetery covers an area of 34,941 square metres.

There are 520 graves of New Zealanders, 322 unidentified. The New Zealand Apse in the memorial commemorates 1176 New Zealanders who have no known grave. In addition, there is another New Zealand Memorial to the Missing in the immediate vicinity – at Buttes, Polygon Wood, close to Zonnebeke. A third is at Messines.

The New Zealand names on the Tyne Cot Memorial and other New Zealand memorials to the missing are the result of a New Zealand government decision at the time to honour the country's dead close to the point where they fell. While Messines is the New Zealand focus on Anzac Day in Belgium, Tyne Cot is the Australian focus.