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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

'Tank Cemetery'


Mark Hone

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I don't know whether this has been covered before but the interwar tourist poster for the Ieper displayed at the Ariane Hotel mentions a 'tank cemetery'. Where exactly was this?

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Hello,

This must have been at a place named 'Clapham Junction', Menin Road between Hooge and Geluveld.

See pick

Regards,

Cnock

post-7723-1125755486.jpg

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Hello,

It was more or less where the Bellewaerde theme park is nowadays.

Regards,

Jan

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Very interesting-I was close to the spot only a couple of days ago. Has anyone compiled a list of the post-war 'tourist sites' which have now disappeared?

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Hello,

They have all been sent to the scrapyard above.

There was a tank displayed also at Poelkapelle, another one at Langemark,another one at Ypres.

The Germans took them away during WWII, to forge new war material...

Regards,

Cnock.

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85 tanks 'from several locations' around Ypres were sold off somewhere in the 1920's. I found a newspaper article to back that up. Anyone could come in and buy them. The auction was done at the spot, and the highest bidder got the tank (just imagine that now). Detailed maps with locations were at the service of the destroyed regions in Brugge at the time, so maybe they still exist.

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Hello,

Langemark in 1919 : tank Eldorado,

the pile in the background is what's left of the church,

Regards,

Cnock

post-7723-1125820113.jpg

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Zillebeke

'Female' tank, only armed with machine guns. and escape hatch under the sponson.

Regards,

Cnock

post-7723-1125820312.jpg

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Thank you all for the further information and fascinating photographs. Kristof-I'm sorry we didn't meet up in the end. I tried contacting you several times on Monday but couldn't get through to your mobile or home phone. Hope we can still sort something out for my tour in October.

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Hi Mark,

i am very sorry too. Something went wrong somewhere... I was at home monday evening.

Anyhow, I still want to help you with your annual tour as much as possible.

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Thanks everyone for posting these excellent shots of knocked out tanks.

Steve

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I don't know whether this has been covered before but the interwar tourist poster for the Ieper  displayed at the Ariane Hotel mentions a 'tank cemetery'. Where exactly was this?

I have a photoccopy of a Michelin guide entitled "Ypres and the battles of Ypres" published in 1919. When at Hooge, it advises the reader to "follow the road to the top of the crest, where the tank cemetery containing fourteen broke-down lies".

Under the nearby photo it says "To the right and left of the road from Ypres to Menin, beyond Hooge, fourteen tanks lie sunk in the mud."

Sadly the quality of the photocopy is not good enough to show the photo here.

Howard

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Howard said:
Sadly the quality of the photocopy is not good enough to show the photo here.
 

This, I think, is the photo being referred to...

Dave.

post-357-1125870929.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello,

new to this forum and someone did point me to this topic as I'm very interested in

the tank cemeteries near Ypres.

I'm living in Poelkapelle, where a tank was on show between the two wars, but was,

as already told here before, removed by Germans for the metal. The people of the generation of my parents keep on telling about playing around the tank and tourists visiting it, throwing pennies. The tank stood right next to the monument of Georges Guynemer on the corner of the market place.

Last year some children of this parents decided to try to restore the village sight between the two wars by putting again a tank at the same location before most of this parents are gone. A quick search learned us that obtaining a real one was not immediately possible, so we decided to try to make a full scale replica of it. Some groupmembers are technicians, so something should be possible.

But the whole story behind this and these tanks is interesting us also very much. We're especially interested in the tanks that fought around Ypres from the battle of Messines 7th june 1917 up to 9th october when the last tanks near Ypres were put into action near Poelkapelle. It was this last action where "our" tank the Damon II was put out of action on the crossroad in the middle of Poelkapelle and was only displaced in 1924 to the market to be removed in 1941 by the Germans.

In this period some tank cemeteries were formed : near Zandberg-'t Hooghe (Menin road near Bellewaerde Park), Frezenberg near between Zonnebeke and Ypres, A19 is going right trough it, Fortuinhoek (south of St.-Juliaan), St.-Juliaan near the Steenbeek and Hanebeek, the crossroad near the Canadian monument between St.-Juliaan and Poelkapelle and also the road to Poelkapelle at both sides right to the center of Poelkapelle.

One of our aims is to gain more information on this tankcemeteries and try to reconstruct the history of this machines so wrongly put into action in the mud. Perhaps in the future this could turn out into some publication or exhibition. Anyway any information, hints, images that could be of interest are very welcome !

Stil need to search the archives of this forum too, but I'm very new here.

Vanbeselaere Johan

Poelkapelle

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Dear Johan,

Maybe there are traces of the location of the tank cemeteries in archives, as some were sold by auction in the 1920's (see my post in this thread). The Rijksarchief of Brugge would be a good place to look, or the 'fonds verwoeste gewesten' in Brussels. Count on weeks of archive work though, with the possibility of not finding anything.

regards,

Bert

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Welcome to the forum - good to have another tank enthusiast on the line.

You will find the pals a great source of information - it does howver take a while as not every post is immediately read.

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