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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Reservist Robert Mendel - German Army


Terry Denham

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Our first German casualty to be remembered.

I hope that we can discover as much about this soldier as we usually do about the Commonwealth casualties.

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Hello Terry, I seemed to have missed this posting. Do you have any of the details on his date of death, burial location, etc.?

Thanks,

Ralph

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Just had a thought. Does this "Remembering today" thing work differently in different timezones?

Egbert. At the top of my screen it says: Reservist Robert MENDEL, German Army, who died on 11.02.15. Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery, France.

Hope this helps,

dave.

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Without the regiment (to be found on the headstone or in the Verlustlisten), it's quite impossible to find more about him...

Jan

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Cité Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentières, Nord

Armentieres is a town in the Department of the Nord, on the Belgian frontier, 14.5 kilometres north-west of Lille.

Armentieres was occupied by the 4th Division on 17 October 1914 and it remained within the Allied lines until its evacuation ahead of the German advance on 10 April 1918, after a prolonged and heavy bombardment with gas shell. It was occupied by the Germans next day, and was not recovered until 3 October 1918. CITE BONJEAN MILITARY CEMETERY was begun (Plot IX) in October 1914 and during the winter of 1914-15 it was used for civilian burials, the town cemetery at Le Bizet being too greatly exposed; the civilian graves are now in a separate enclosure. The cemetery continued to be used by field ambulances and fighting units (partly the 4th, 6th, 21st, New Zealand, 17th and 57th (West Lancashire) Divisions and the Australian Corps) until April 1918. Plots V, VI, VII and X were then used by the Germans. The cemetery now contains 2,132 Commonwealth burials of the First World War. In 1925, 455 German graves were removed from Plots V and VI, but more than 500 remain in the cemetery. There are also 33 Second World War burials, mostly dating from the months of occupation by the British Expeditionary Force, before the German invasion of May 1940. Within the cemetery stands the CITE BONJEAN (NEW ZEALAND) MEMORIAL, commemorating 47 officers and men of the New Zealand Division who died in the neighbourhood of Armentieres and have no known grave. This is one of seven memorials in France and Belgium to those New Zealand soldiers who died on the Western Front and whose graves are not known. The memorials are all in cemeteries chosen as appropriate to the fighting in which the men died. The cemetery and memorial were designed by Sir Herbert Baker.

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North American Pals

The 'Remembering Today' name changes each day at midnight local time. Therefore we all see it at different times, those in the Far East/Pacific being the first.

The Pals in that area who take an interest in researching the name have kindly agreed to refrain from posting on the name until midnight UK time to avoid the confusion caused by talking about someone whom the majority of Pals have not yet seen. We had an example of such confusion last night.

Unfortunately we can't do anything about the time difference with North America.

The original idea was to have everyone remembering the same person at the same time but time zones prevent this and so it is better that any postings are centred on the time zone where the majority of members reside.

Please bear this in mind when viewing the feature and be patient until midnight! (and thanks to our Pacific Pals).

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Neither CWGC nor VdK had any record of his regiment available on-line but it may be inscribed on the headstone.

CWGC has not yet transferred any unit details for Foreign Nationals in its care to the database as yet.

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A note on the time thing. The script that executes to allow you to see the soldiers name does so using the clock at your broswer, not at the server. So the time is local to you, and hence NZ sees the new soldier before Australia, and West Coast USA is last unless there is anyone out there in the eastern Pacific.

This can be overcome by setting the clock on your PC to UK time, or New Zealand time if you prefer! :lol:

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It seems that it is impossible to find out more about Robert Mendel without seeing his gravestone.

A commission for anyone going to France in the near future! Or already there!

Please could you go to the Cite Bonjean cemetery, near Armentieres, find the grave, hopefully take a photo, and let us know his regiment or any other details available

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I checked VdK database "before time". What puzzles me is that this soldier -although buried on a military cemetery (my granddad is also buried on a Brit CWGC cemetery and is included in the VdK database)- is not known to their database at all! Very strange!

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Nachname: Mendel

Vorname: Robert

Dienstgrad: Reservist

Geburtsdatum:

Geburtsort:

Todes-/Vermisstendatum: 11.02.1915

Todesort:

Robert Mendel ruht auf der Kriegsgräberstätte in Armentières,Cité Bonjean (Frankreich) .

Endgrablage: Block 10 Reihe N Grab 16

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The following info has been supplied to me by a helpful contact.

Robert Mendel - 2 Kompanie, Infanterie Regiment 139.

This regiment belonged to the 24 Infanterie Division of the Saxon army.

The 24 Infanterie Division fought in Flanders and Artois between 25.12.14 and 08.05.15.

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