Aldershot Military Cemetery

The Mortuary Chapel of Aldershot Military Cemetery

Aldershot Military Cemetery is a burial ground for military personnel, or ex-military personnel. It is located in Aldershot Military Town, Hampshire. The Cemetery is also open for the interment of husbands, wives and children of all ranks, and for some civilians who have spent their working life with the army.

The Cemetery lies between Thorn Hill and Peaked Hill, and is bordered to the south by Ordnance Road. Entrance is from Gallwey Road, near where the old time-gun stood, and from Ordnance Road.

It is unlike any other military cemetery in the United Kingdom, for not only is it set on hills and small valleys in natural surrounds, but here, at rest, lie nearly 17,000 fighting men of nine nations. There are 690 First World War graves in the cemetery; the earliest bears the date 5 August 1914, and the latest 11 August 1921. Many of these graves are in plot AF. The 129 Second World War graves are in groups in various plots, the largest group in plot A containing 86 graves [1]

Early history

Aldershot Military Cemetery in 1910

The Cemetery was first enclosed in 1856, and although a number of soldiers were buried on the site prior to that year, soldiers and their families were interred in the churchyard of the village parish church of St Michael the Archangel in nearby Aldershot before the cemetery opened.

In 1870 the cemetery became the responsibility of the senior Royal Engineers Officer in "The Camp." The Protestant portion of the cemetery was consecrated by Samuel Wilberforce, the then Bishop of Winchester, on 1 November 1870.

The Mortuary Chapel was built in 1879 on newly acquired ground that had previously been used as a signal post. It replaced a wooden chapel built lower down the slope at the time the cemetery was first opened; this burned down resulting in the permanent chapel being built. The cemetery is divided into sections according to religious denomination and conflict; for example, there are sections relating to the two World Wars, the Falklands War of 1982 and for children.

Present day

View of Aldershot Military Cemetery

The graves are set in beautifully tended steep rolling grounds of 15 acres (6.1 ha), traversed by many tarmacadam paths. The area is well wooded with oaks, pines, firs and chestnut trees, interspersed with yew topiary and rhododendrons.

Some parts are of bracken and heather, that are typical of the Aldershot countryside nearby, and possibly this was how this land was in the days before "The Camp" was built and before the cemetery was opened in 1865. The graves themselves are mostly set amid the fine textured close-cut turf, the cemetery being bordered as a whole, by holly hedging. The most western part of the grounds, where some of the earliest headstones are to be found, has been intentionally allowed to become overgrown. The loftier parts of the ground offer pleasant views of the Surrey heathlands, that form some of the nearby Army training grounds.

Here, in surroundings familiar during their soldiering days, are the graves of the fighting men of all ranks and many nations, who have served, lived and died in Aldershot. Some of service personnel having died in the nearby Cambridge Military Hospital, from wounds or disease contracted while on active service overseas.

At one time the cemetery held the graves of 78 German soldiers who had died in this country as Prisoners of War, including that of Generalfeldmarschall Ernst Busch, 2 other German Army officers, 13 members of the Luftwaffe and 7 sailors; these were exhumed in February 1963 and were reburied at Cannock Chase German war cemetery in Staffordshire. The cemetery also held the graves of 25 Italian POWs who were similarly exhumed and reburied in an unknown location.[2] In addition, 17 victims of the Blackbushe Air Disaster of May 1957 are also buried in the cemetery,[3] as well as over 50 Canadian soldiers of both World Wars, plus the graves of Poles, South Africans, Gurkhas, Belgians, Dutch and New Zealanders, amongst others.[4]

Notable graves

Samuel Franklin Cody in about 1908

Gallery

See also

References

  1. Katikati e-Memorial World War 1
  2. Ward, Daniel J., A Life Never Dies: Aldershot Military Cemetery Unknown publisher (c.1988) pgs. 1-2
  3. Ward, pg. 38
  4. Ward, pg. 39
  5. Busch's funeral described in 'Some of the Prisoners held at Special Camp 11'

External links

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Coordinates: 51°15′19″N 0°44′49″W / 51.25528°N 0.74694°W / 51.25528; -0.74694

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