Boulogne Eastern Cemetery - Commemorative Information

Boulogne Eastern Cemetery is one of the Town Cemeteries and stands on high ground on the eastern side of Boulogne on the road to St Omer.

Boulogne was one of the three Base Ports most extensively used by the British Armies on the Western Front throughout the 1914-18 War. It was closed and cleared on 27 August 1914 in consequence of the retreat of the Allies, but it was opened again in October and from that month to the end of the War Boulogne and Wimereux formed one of the chief Hospital areas.

The dead from the Hospitals at Boulogne itself were buried , until June (in a few cases July) 1918, in the Cimetiere de l'Est, one of the Town Cemeteries. The British graves form a long, narrow strip along the right hand edge of the cemetery. They are arranged in seven plots numbered I to IV and VII TO IX (the number V was given to the German Plot and VI to the Portuguese). In the spring of 1918 it was found that the ground available in the Eastern Cemetery was being filled up, in spite of repeated extensions to the South, and the site of the new cemetery at Terlincthun was chosen.

During the 1939-45 War Boulogne was, for a short time in May 1940, again the site of British hospitals and of Rear General Head Quarters. Taken by the Germans at the end of that month it remained in their hands until recaptured by the Canadians on 22 September 1944.

There are now nearly 6,000 World War I and 200 World War II casualties commemorated at this site. The cemetery covers 8,040 square metres.

.....click here to see Robert's War Graves Commemoration certificate

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