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In Memory of HARRY WILLIAM REEVE
Private
103244
149th Coy., Machine Gun Corps
who died on
Thursday 25 October 1917. Age 31
Additional Information:
103244 Private, 149th Company, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry). Killed in action during the Flanders Offensive on Thursday 25 October 1917. Age 31. The son of William and Rebecca Jane Reeve, of High Street, Barford. He was born in Warwick and he enlisted in Birmingham. He served overseas at some time after Saturday 1 January 1916. He formerly served as 24176, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. He is also commemorated on a Memorial Screen, St. Peter’s Church, Barford. Holder of British War Medal, Victory Medal.
Cemetery:
TYNE COT MEMORIAL Zonnebeke, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium
Grave or Reference Panel Number: Panel 154 to 159 and 163A
Location:
The Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing forms the north-eastern boundary
of Tyne Cot Cemetery, which is located 9 kilometres north east of
leper town centre, on the Tynecot-straat, a road leading from the onnebeekseweg
(N3 32).
The names of those from United
Kingdom units are inscribed on Panels arranged by Regiment under their
respective
Ranks. The names of those from New Zealand units are inscribed on panels
within the
New Zealand Memorial Apse located at the center of the Memorial.
There are two separate registers for this site - one for the cemetery and
one for the memo-rial. The memorial register will be found in the left
hand rotunda of the memorial as you face the memorial. The Panel Numbers
quoted
at the end of each entry relate to the panels dedicated to the Regiment
served with. In some instances where a casualty is recorded as attached
to another Regiment, his name may alternatively appear within their Regimental
Panels. Please refer to the on-site Memorial Register Introduction to
determine the alter-native panel numbers if you do not find the name
within the quoted
Panels.
Historical Information:
The Tyne Cot Memorial is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian
Flanders which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient. Broadly speaking,
the Salient stretched from Langemarck in the north to the northern edge in
Ploegsteert Wood in the south, but it varied in area and shape throughout
the war.
The Salient was formed during the First Battle of Ypres in October
and November 1914, when a small British Expeditionary Force succeeded in
securing the town before the onset of winter, pushing the German forces back
to the Passchendaele Ridge. The Second Battle of Ypres began in April 1915
when the Germans released poison gas into the Allied lines north of Ypres.
This was the
first time gas had been used by either side and the violence of the attack
forced an Allied withdrawal and a shortening of the line of defence.
There
was little more significant activity on this front until 1917, when in the
Third Battle of Ypres an offensive was mounted by Commonwealth forces to
divert German attention from a weakened French front further south. The initial
attempt in June to dislodge the Germans from the Messines Ridge was a complete
success, but the main assault north-eastward, which began at the end of July,
quickly became a dogged struggle against determined opposition and the rapidly
deteriorat-ing weather.
The campaign finally came to a close in November
with the capture of Pass-chendaele.
The German offensive of March 1918 met
with some initial success, but was eventually checked and repulsed in a combined
effort by the Allies in September.
The battles of the Ypres Salient claimed
many lives on both sides and it quickly became clear that the commemoration
of members of the Commonwealth forces with no known grave would have to be
divided between several different sites. The site of the Menin Gate was chosen
because of the hundreds of thousands of men who passed through it on their
way to the battlefields. It commemorates those of all Commonwealth nations
except New Zea-land who died in the Salient before 16 August 1917. Those
United Kingdom and New Zea-land servicemen who died after that date are named
on the memorial at Tyne Cot, a site which marks the furthest point reached
by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war. Other
New Zealand casualties are commemorated on memorials at Buttes New British
Cemetery and Messines Ridge British Cemetery.
The TYNE COT MEMORIAL now bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men
whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Herbert Baker with
sculpture by Joseph Annitage and F V Blundstone, was unveiled by Sir Gilbert
Dyett in July 1927. The memorial forms the north-eastern boundary of TYNE
COT CEMETERY, which was established around a captured German blockhouse or
pill-box used as an advanced dressing station.
The original battlefield cemetery
of 343 graves was greatly enlarged after the Armi-stice when remains were
brought in from the battlefields of Passchendaele and Langemarck, and from
a few small burial grounds. It is now the largest Commonwealth war cemetery
in the world in terms of burials.
At the suggestion of King George V, who
visited the cemetery in 1922, the Cross of Sacrifice was placed on the original
large pill-box. There are three other pill-boxes in the cemetery. There are
now 11,952 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated
in Tyne Cot Cemetery. 8,365 of the burials are unidentified but there are
special memorials to more than 80 casualties known or believed to be buried
among them. Other special memorials commemorate 20 casualties whose graves
were destroyed by shell fire. The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker.
Regiment, Corps etc.
|
Machine Gun Corps |
Battalion/etc.
|
Infantry |
Surname |
REEVE |
Christian Name(s) |
Harry William |
Born |
Warwick |
Enlisted |
Birmingham |
Residence |
|
Died Date |
25/10/17 |
Rank |
PRIVATE |
Number |
103244 |
Died How |
Killed in action |
Theatre of War |
France & Flanders |
Supplementary notes |
FORMERLY 24176, R. WARWICKS REGT. |
You might also be interested in an informative website devoted to the Machine Gun Corps. Click here to visit Jim Parker's website.
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