Dragoon Camp Cemetery, (CWGC)

DRAGOON CAMP CEMETERY

West-Vlaanderen

Belgium

GPS Coordinates Latitude: 50.89563 Longitude: 2.8815

Location Information

Boezinge is located north of the town of Ieper on the N369 road, direction Diksmuide. The Cemetery is located in Kleinepoezelstraat east of the village. From the N369 turn right into Brugstraat, over the bridge and bear right into Langemarkseweg. Follow this road to the first crossroads and turn right into Kleine Poezelstraat. The cemetery is located on the left hand side of the road approximately 200 metres past the crossroads.

Visiting Information

Please note that this cemetery is accessed via very long unmade paths and these will prove problematic for wheelchair users at certain times of year.

Historical Information

Dragoon Camp was a little south of the Boesinghe (now Boezinge)-Pilckem road, approached by a track leading from a point near Dragoon House, past the Villa Gretchen. The site was taken by the 38th (Welsh) Division on 31 July 1917 and the cemetery, called at first the Villa Gretchen Cemetery, was begun by the 13th Royal Welch Fusiliers on 9 August. It continued in use until October 1917.

Dragoon Camp Cemetery contains 66 First World War burials, ten of them unidentified.

The cemetery was designed by A J S Hutton.

Total Burials: 66.

Identified Casualties: United Kingdom 56.

Unidentified Casualties: United Kingdom 10.

Images in this gallery © Geerhard Joos

Major
Evan Davies, Mentioned in Despatches
15th Bn. Royal Welsh Fusiliers
28th July 1917.
Row B. 1.

Second Lieutenant
William Lloyd Davies
"C" Coy. 13th Bn. Royal Welsh Fusiliers
31st July 1917, aged 23.
Row B. 4.

Son of Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Davies, of Coombe Park, Peniel, Carmarthen.

17771 Lance Corporal
William Edwards
16th Bn. Royal Welsh Fusiliers
31st July 1917
Row B. 35.

Lieutenant
Thomas Cyril Nicholls-Jones
14th Bn. Royal Welsh Fusiliers
31st July 1917, aged 30.
Row B. 34.

Only son of Mrs. A. S. Nicholls-Jones, of Penrhos, Llangefni, Anglesey, and the late Thomas Nicholls-Jones.

His headstone bears the inscription; "All You Had Hoped For All You Had, You Gave."

14th October 1917; Troops of the 10th Australian Brigade at Dragoon Farm drying their clothes the morning after coming out of the Passchendaele Ridge area where two days previously, on 12 October 1917, they took part in the great attack against the Germans, and found a still greater enemy in the morass of mud caused by heavy and continuous rain.

Battle of Pilckem Ridge. Stretcher bearers struggle in mud up to their knees to carry a wounded man to safety near Boesinghe, 1 August 1917. Identified front, centre is Private Cecil Hawkins a stretcher bearer with 106 Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps © IWM (Q 5935)

The two survivors of a 40th (Australian) Battalion Lewis Gun crew cleaning their Lewis Gun at Dragoon Farm, near Ypres, after the Battle of Passchendaele. This was the third battle in which the gun had been used, but its two previous crews lost their lives in operating it against the enemy. Identified, left to right, foreground: 1630 Sergeant (Sgt) H R Donaldson; 2368 Private (Pte) H O'Toole; 460 Pte O H Malross MM; 380 Pte F Gale (kneeling); 2075 Lance Corporal A E Foster (partially obscured); 529 Sgt George Henry Waller.

British troops pose for a photograph on the remains of a German concrete pill box now being used as the roof of a British dug-out near Boesinghe, 28 January 1918. © IWM (Q 10633)

Battle of Pilckem Ridge. Royal Engineers carrying wood for a bridge across the Yser Canal. Note the mud and the wearing of waterproof sheets. Near Boesinghe, August 1917. © IWM (Q 5936)