Zonnebeke, Tyne Cot Cemetery

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Zonnebeke, Tyne Cot Cemetery

Zonnebeke, Tyne Cot Cemetery

This was the Tyne Cot blockhouse – the 40th Battalion at Tyne Cot

It is said that the great Cross of Sacrifice at Tyne Cot can be seen on a clear day with binoculars from a ship in the English Channel sixty kilometres away. Certainly this cross towers above the headstones like no other in the area. Set into the white stone is an embrasure enclosing a small square of weathered concrete, part of an original defensive pillbox, one of the many built by the Germans on this battlefield in World War I. The cross was placed here at the suggestion of King George V who visited Tyne Cot in 1922 when the cemetery was under construction and he noticed that the old pillboxes had not been removed. They had been left as reminders of the struggle along this ridge in late 1917. Two of them can be seen to the left and right of the cemetery entrance.

The Cross of Sacrifice at Tyne Cot Cemetery built on top of an old German blockhouse or 'pill box'. [DVA]

Cross of Sacrifice, Tyne Cot Cemetery, showing the window into the original concrete wall of the German blockhouse. [DVA]

Broodseinde Ridge, Passchendaele, Belgium, 4 October 1917. [AWM E00961]

These particular pillboxes were at the centre of an Australian story on 4 October 1917, the day of the Battle of Broodseinde. Beneath the embrasure let into the cross are these words:

This was the Tyne Cot blockhouse
captured by the
3rd Australian Division
4 October 1917

Inscription beneath the Cross of Sacrifice, Tyne Cot Cemetery. [DVA]

German blockhouse or pillbox on Broodseinde Ridge, 17 October 1917. [AWM E01034]

It was not simply the 3rd Division who captured the very ground on which Tyne Cot Cemetery now stands but specifically the 40th Battalion, the only all–Tasmanian battalion to fight with the AIF in World War I.
From the front wall of Tyne Cot one can see down a gentle slope to Ieper nine kilometres away with the towers of the Lakenhalle and St Martin’s rising above the town. Slightly off to the left about one and a half kilometres across the fields was where the four battalions of the 10th Australian Infantry Brigade, the 40th Battalion among them, began their advance towards Tyne Cot on the morning of 4 October 1917. The 40th’s task was the final assault on Tyne Cot when the Tasmanians were to go through the 39th Battalion (Victoria) and on to the ridge:

From the 39th Battalion objective a stiff fight against the heaviest opposition began. On top of the ridge the trench system and line of pillboxes along it seemed alive with men and machine guns … The only possible way to advance was from shell–hole to shell–hole by short rushes. To add to our difficulties, there was a thick belt of wire immediately in front of us, which had very few gaps in it.

Captain Frank Green, The Fortieth, Hobart, 1922, p.76

Looking across the fields from the front wall of Tyne Cot Cemetery. It was over this area that the men of the 40th Battalion (Tasmania) attacked on the morning of 4 October 1917 at the Battle of Broodseinde. [DVA]

View towards the belfry of the Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall) and the spire of St Martin’s Cathedral at Ypres from behind the Cross of Sacrifice at Tyne Cot Cemetery. [DVA]

Men bunched up at these gaps, as the enemy intended they should, and many were killed and wounded. Under this withering fire most of the officers tried to provide a lead and Captain Cecil McVilley ‘stood out, calling his company until this gallant officer was seriously wounded.’ Finally, Captain William Ruddock worked his company around the side of a strongpoint known as ‘Hamburg’ and was able to bring fire across the German positions. This encouraged the Tasmanians and Sergeant Lewis McGee, pistol in hand, charged forward at a pillbox in front of ‘Hamburg’ where a machine gunner on top of the pillbox was holding the Australians down into shell–holes. McGee raced over 50 metres of open ground into what looked like certain death and shot the machine gun crew. ‘Hamburg’ now fell to a direct assault although Lieutenant Norman Meagher was killed in the rush. Nothing now seemed to hold the Tasmanians from their objective – not the wire, the pillboxes nor the trenches of Tyne Cot itself:

The honour of getting on to the objective first … was won by Corporal E D [Edwin Dubelle] Weston who beat everybody else over 100 yards [90 metres] of open ground. He was wounded during the race, but that did not stop his offensive spirit, for he captured the first pillbox single handed, and was then reinforced by his section … after a short fight the enemy surrendered.

F C Green, The Fortieth, Hobart, 1922, p.77

Headstone of Sergeant Lewis McGee, 40th Battalion (Tasmania), Tyne Cot Cemetery. [DVA]

Sergeant Lewis McGee, 40th Battalion (Tasmania), killed in action 12 October 1917. [AWM A02623]

For his bravery on 4 October at Tyne Cot Sergeant Lewis McGee was awarded the Victoria Cross. Nine days later he was killed in the Battle of Passchendaele and lies buried in Tyne Cot in Plot XX, Row D, Grave 1. Lieutenant Norman Meagher, age 22, killed according to the battalion historian in ‘that gallant rush’ which took ‘Hamburg’ strongpoint, lies in Plot XVI, Row A, Grave 7. Corporal Edwin Weston was evacuated with a gunshot wound and hospitalised. Rejoining his unit in early November 1917, he was promoted Lieutenant and later awarded the Military Cross for his bravery at the Hindenburg Line in September–October 1918. Captain Cecil McVilley’s wound was serious enough to cause his evacuation to England and, on recovery, he was posted to one of the most exotic units of World War I, ‘Dunsterforce’ in the Middle East, whose purpose was to prevent the unlikely invasion of India by German and Turkish forces. Both Weston and McVilley survived the war and returned home to Tasmania.

Headstone of Lieutenant Norman Meagher, 40th Battalion (Tasmania), Tyne Cot Cemetery. [DVA]

Of the 50 men of the 40th Battalion who died at the Battle of Broodseinde, and the day after as the battalion consolidated the line, 70 percent have no known grave and are commemorated on the Menin Gate. Word of their passing went home to communities all over the island state, to places such as Sassafras, Nile, Adventure Bay, Zeehan, Bradshaw’s Creek, Sandfly, Devonport and Hobart. A few may lie under headstones in Tyne Cot carrying the words:

An Australian Soldier of the Great War,
Known Unto God

Nine others, including Lewis McGee and Norman Meagher, are identified on their graves. All of them lie buried in the ground over which they fought on 4 October 1917.