There was so much mud it could swallow the dead and injured whole; alive or dead didn't matter. If those still alive couldn't keep themselves above the mud, they were swallowed. It is virtually impossible to comprehend this until you see all their names on Menin Gate.
Menin Gate is located in Ypres (Ieper), Belgium. It is a memorial to those who died in the Flanders/Passchendaele (Ypres Salient) areas during the First World War and whose bodies were never found or identified.
The walls and stairways of Menin Gate are engraved with the names of those soldiers.
The Canadian names cover the walls of one staircase of Menin Gate. There are row upon row of names.
Starting Nov. 11, 1929 and continuing every single evening since then, at 8 p.m., the road under Menin Gate is closed to traffic and Last Post is sounded by buglers. No matter what the weather or how many people are there to listen. During the Second World War, when Ypres (Ieper) was occupied, the daily ceremony moved to England.
The night I stood under Menin Gate for the 8 p.m. ceremony there wre more than100 people there. The silence of the crowd was complete. Three buglers performed the Last Post. It was almost eerie how the sounds echoed under Menin Gate. The echo seemed to be reaching out to the souls of the soldiers to let them know they are not forgotten. A few in the crowd wiped tears from their eyes.
In total, 300,000 soldiers died in the Flanders area during the First World War. Of those 54,896 have no known grave. All that remains of them is their name on Menin Gate.
There wasn't enough room on Menin Gate for all the names. Another 34,984 names of those without known graves are on the walls of Tyne Cot Cemetery. The names seem to go on and on.
While in Tyne Cot Cemetery you hear a woman's voice announcing the name and age of death of each soldier. The melancholy voice seems to follow you. In the visitor's centre the woman's voice is there. As each soldier's name and age of death is announced, that soldier's picture and name is displayed. In all 34,984 pictures and names from the walls of Tyne Cot Cemetery show, one at a time.
There are 11,954 headstones in Tyne Cot Cemetery and 8,367 of those have no name. Among the headstones are 966 Canadians and 14 Newfoundlanders and 560 of the Canadian headstone sare without names. The maple leaf, "Known unto God" or "A Soldier of the Great War" is all that is on most of those headstones.
The Last Post is performed each night at Menin Gate to honour a soldier listed on the Menin Gate. The people of Ypres (Ieper) wanted it this way so they could express their gratitude to those who gave their lives. It will take 150 years to honour each soldier on Menin Gate. Then there are the 34,984 names at Tyne Cot Cemetery.
Reading the names on Menin Gate and the Tyne Cot Cemetery walls is mind numbing. There is every rank represented on these walls, from drummer to a brigadier general. There are a total of 89,880 names listed on the walls of Menin Gate and Tyne Cot Cemetery.
A mother grieved 89,880 times. Then she spent the rest of her life living with the knowledge that her son's resting place is unknown and that she could never visit her son's grave.
Rudyard Kipling who wrote Jungle Book: "Here are recorded names of officers and men who fell in Ypres Salient, but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death."
"To this day, the remains of missing soldiers are still found in the countryside around the town of Ypres [Ieper]. . . Any human remains discovered receive a proper burial in one of the war cemeteries in the region. If the remains can be identified, the name is removed from the Menin Gate."
