War Graves
A New Zealand Memorial (right), virtually identical to that at Messines, is located at 's Graventafel, marking the victory in the Battle of Broodseinde on October 4, 1917. The wording on the white-stone obelisk says in three languages: "In honour of the men of the New Zealand Division. The Battle of Broodseinde, 4th of October 1917. This monument marks the site of 's Graventafel, which on 4th October, 1917, was captured by the New Zealand Division as part of a general advance towards Passchendaele."
In addition to the Anzac Commemorations at Tyne Cot on October 4 this year, New Zealand services will take place at this memorial on October 4 and 12.
In addition to the Tyne Cot New Zealand Memorial to the Missing and the New Zealand graves in the cemetery there, there is another New Zealand Memorial to the Missing (left) in the Passchendaele area - at the Buttes New British Cemetery about one and a half kilometres from Zonnebeke.
This commemorates 378 officers and men of the New Zealand Division who died in the Polygon Wood sector between September 1917 and May 1918, and who have no known grave.
According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the majority died in the trenches, or in working and carrying. Conditions in the Salient during the winter of 1917-18, it says, must explain the comparatively large number of names on this memorial, which deals with only one set attack on a German position.
The photo left is taken from the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing looking towards the Australian Memorial on the Butte itself. The small Polygon Wood cemetery close by has 103 graves, 60 of them New Zealanders.
In total, across Flanders there are more than 4600 New Zealand graves or names on memorials in some 80 Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries.