ST. ÉTIENNE-AU-MONT COMMUNAL CEMETERY
Pas De Calais
France
GPS Coordinates - Latitude: 50.66941, Longitude: 1.63528
Location Information
St. Étienne is a small town approximately 2 kilometres south of Boulogne. Leave Boulogne on the N1 travelling through the industrial estate. At Isques take the D940 from the large roundabout signposted 'Le Touquet'. Cross the Pont-de-briques and continue for 1.7 kilometres. The cemetery is on the right hand side.
Historical Information
No.2 Native Labour General Hospital was posted to Etienne-au-Mont from 1917 to 1919 and the communal cemetery contains burials from that hospital, mostly men of the Chinese Labour Corps.
There are now 168 Commonwealth burials of the First World War in the cemetery.
Casualty Details: China 163, South Africa 5, Total Burials: 168.
The Chinese Labour Corps Memorial designed in 1919 by Major Cyril Knott, a Quaker missionary in China before 1914 & a fluent speaker of Mandarin, who devoted his war years to service with the CLC, working as interpreter & stretcher-bearer.
Shot at Dawn
53497 Labourer Cheng Shan Kung, 60th Company, Chinese Labour Corps, executed for murder on 23rd July 1918. Plot I. C. 2. He seems to have served on the Western Front for about a year; & was executed for murdering a fellow-countryman. (Putkowski,p.250)
St. Étienne is a small town approximately 2 kilometres south of Boulogne. Leave Boulogne on the N1 travelling through the industrial estate. At Isques take the D940 from the large roundabout signposted 'Le Touquet'. Cross the Pont-de-briques and continue for 1.7 kilometres. The cemetery is on the right hand side.
Historical Information
No.2 Native Labour General Hospital was posted to Etienne-au-Mont from 1917 to 1919 and the communal cemetery contains burials from that hospital, mostly men of the Chinese Labour Corps.
There are now 168 Commonwealth burials of the First World War in the cemetery.
Casualty Details: China 163, South Africa 5, Total Burials: 168.
The Chinese Labour Corps Memorial designed in 1919 by Major Cyril Knott, a Quaker missionary in China before 1914 & a fluent speaker of Mandarin, who devoted his war years to service with the CLC, working as interpreter & stretcher-bearer.
Shot at Dawn
53497 Labourer Cheng Shan Kung, 60th Company, Chinese Labour Corps, executed for murder on 23rd July 1918. Plot I. C. 2. He seems to have served on the Western Front for about a year; & was executed for murdering a fellow-countryman. (Putkowski,p.250)
Images in this gallery - © Werner Van Canegham
Interior of Laundry showing Chinese labour employed, St. Omer, 2nd, May 1918. © IWM (Q 29565)
Image © Nicholas Philpot
