| Historical Information: |
St. Omer became on the 13th October, 1914, and remained until the
end of March, 1916, the General Headquarters of the British Expeditionary
Force. Lord Roberts died there in November, 1914. It was a considerable
hospital centre, more especially in 1918; the 4th, 10th, 7th Canadian, 9th
Canadian and New Zealand Stationary Hospitals, the 7th, 58th (Scottish)
and 59th (Northern) General Hospitals, and the 17th, 18th and 1st and 2nd
Australian Casualty Clearing Stations were all, at some time during the
war, quartered in St. Omer. It was raided by aeroplanes in November, 1917,
and May, 1918, with serious loss of life. At Elnes, 11 kilometres to the
South-West, the 8th Casualty Clearing Station made a small cemetery in the
summer of 1918; and the four graves from Elnes, with three others, were
brought into the Souvenir Cemetery after the Armistice. There are now over
3,000, 1914-18 and nearly 450, 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this
site. Special Memorial headstones are erected to 23 men of the Chinese
Labour Corps whose graves could not be exactly located and an airman of
the Royal Air Force, buried at the time in Merckeghem churchyard, whose
grave is now lost. The British portion of the Cemetery covers an area of
about 5,541 square metres. |