Pond Farm Cemetery, Belgium

[laughton]

The zipped GRRF files are now here, albeit for a small cemetery. One of those close to the action at Messines Ridge, southwest of Spanbroekmolen. There are twenty-two (22) men buried there from June 1917.

 

Pond Farm Cemetery (formerly Pond Farm Military Cemetery, Wulverghem)

• White Cross Atlas page 41 Grid F8 Number 1253
• GRRF 1829914-1829927

 

It does not appear that there were any concentrations, but I will check and update this information as needed. The burials seem to be mixed up by date, which suggests concentrations, as the 1916 burials are at the end of rows containing 1917 burials.

 

• UBS in Row M Grave 14 and Row P Grave 11  but no clues as to their identity
• two (2) of the 1/7 Cheshires from 4 September 1918. with Ball 291117, Hawes 316152 and 2/Lt B. L. Brandon (all in Row P Grave 3 - must have been co-mingled))
  • 2/Lt. B. L. Brandon appears as King Shropshire Light Infantry, attached to 1st/7th Cheshires
  • interesting that there are 3 special crosses for "Buried in this Cemetery" for three men of that battalion
    • Corp. F. Cope 290272 - 3 September 1918
    • Pte. H. Trueman 243645 - 3 September 1918
    • Pte. E. Brown 50613 - 4 September 1918
  • would you not think that they are the ones in Row P Grave 3 buried with the Lieutenant and 2 other Privates?
  • the other two in the cemetery are Varney and Hocking in O.5 and O.6
  • on the Tyne Cot Memorial we have Privates Newman and Baker from 3 September 1918
    • if they know the other two with 2/Lt. Brandon are NOT one of the three KNOWN buried in the cemetery, then they are Newman and Baker
    • if, as the CWGC text states, they could not find their graves, that must mean they exhumed them to see if they were one of the three (Cope, Newman, or Brown)
    • do you not think someone would have wanted to figure that out?

 

Quote

Wulverghem (now Wulvergem) was the scene of a German gas attack on the night of 29-30 April 1916 which was repulsed by the 3rd and 24th Divisions.

 

The village was captured by the Germans on 14 April 1918 and reoccupied by the 30th Division on the following 2 September. 'POND FARM' was in the fields about 800 metres East of Packhorse Farm, and on the North-West side of Pond Farm is the Cemetery.

 

The cemetery was begun by the 3rd Rifle Brigade and the 8th Buffs in July 1916 and it was used by fighting units and field ambulances until October 1917. Further burials were made in April and September 1918.

 

There are now 296 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery, including special memorials to three casualties of the 1st/7th Cheshires, buried here early in September 1918, whose graves could not be found. The cemetery also contains five German war graves.

 

[laughton]

This is the GRRF and HD-SCHD for the men that are buried together in Row P Grave 3, all dated 3 September 1918:

• Two Unknown British Soldiers
  GRRF shows 1st/7th Cheshire Regiment
• M. Ball 291117
  1st/7th Cheshire Regiment
• H. Hawes 316152
  1st/7th Cheshire Regiment
• B. L. Brandon 2nd/Lt.
  King's Shropshire Light Infantry
  (att'd 1st/7th Cheshire Regiment)

On the far right is the GRRF for the "Special Crosses". Cope and Trueman are dated 3 September 1918 and Brown is 4 September 1918.

 

 

Sapper J. Deacon #552857 of the 201st Field Company Royal Engineers was marked for Row B Grave 21, then that was marked "vacant". His name appears later for Row J Grave 1. The importance of that relates to that row being the start of any remains from 1918. The first three graves in Row J are from 1918 and the rest from 1917, which means this cemetery was assembled after September 1918 or at least the cemetery was realigned or reorganized after that date. It is possible that the graves were also added at the front of Row J and the only change was the numbering. Row K has a 1918 casualty in the first and last grave of a row. Row P differs in that the 1918 burials in the GROUP GRAVE P3 is in the middle of the row.

 

The cemetery layout also appears odd in the schematic, in that the rows appear to be a mirror image of what would normally be seen.   Row B Grave 21 no longer exists on the diagram.   Row A shows the early 1916 graves are in the later numbers on the left side, as would be expected if that was Grave 1. That is repeated elsewhere, so the 1917 graves on the left were added later and the numbering sequence is just the reverse of normal. In Row E the 3 separate graves are the 3 from 1917.   Row J goes out further on the left as that is where the 3 graves for 1918 were added. The lonely Row K Grave 1 is also a 1918 burial, same Engineer Coy as Deacon.   Row N Graves 1, 2, 3 and Row O Graves 1,2 are not marked, as they are the 5 German graves.   The Special Memorials are on the left border

Pond Farm showing Row P by the Cross of Sacrifice. There is a space where Grave 3 has the 4 burials, perhaps as 2 coffins. Apparently a trench burial. Row O to the rear has strange spacing, somehow related to the German burials.   Most of the other burials appear to be well spaced.   Note: You get the CWGC images the same way you retrieve GRRF and COG-BR files. "Right Click" on the image on the CWGC page, select "Inspect" and get the background image location from the bottom right. You can then pick a range of photos around that address and download them with "DownThemAll".