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| 1929 Menin Gate The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is dedicated to the British Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient, whose graves are unknown. It is located at the eastern exit of the town and marks the starting point for one of the main roads out of the town that led Allied soldiers to the front line.
Designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and was unveiled on 24th July 1927.
From 11th November 1929 (every night whatever the weather) at 8:00pm a moving ceremony takes place under the Menin Gate, Ypres. The Last Post Ceremony has become part of the daily life for the people of the town.
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Its large Hall of Memory contains 54,395 names on stone panels of Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient, but,whose bodies have never been identified or found.
On completion of the memorial it was discovered to be too small to contain all the names as originally planned, therefore, an arbitrary cut-off point of the 15th August 1917 was chosen, leaving the names of 34,984 British soldiers, who had 'no known grave', to be inscribed on the wall of the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing instead. The Menin Gate Memorial does not list the names of soldiers of New Zealand and Newfoundland, instead they are honoured on separate memorials.
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| Menin Gate Hall of Memory |
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| Tynecot Wall and Graves |
This photograph shows Alfred's colleagues walking through the town of Ypres towards the Menin Gate.
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| 1929 Walking Through the Town of Ypres towards the Menin Gate |
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| The town today seen through the Arch |
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| The Lion and Inscription atop of the Menin Gate Arch
Perhaps a fitting way to end Alfred's Battlefield Tour, is this well known extract from Robert Laurence Binyon's (1869-1943) famous war poems "For The Fallen" published in the Times Newspaper on 21st September 1914
"They shall not grow old as we are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them." |
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