Rifleman
Z/913
4th Bn., Rifle Brigade
who died on
Monday, 15th February 1915. Age 23.
Additional Information: Son of Mr. and Mrs. Garbett, of Palmer St. Flats, Palmer St., Birmingham; husband of Elsie Maria Parker (formerly Garbett), of 10, Prince of Wales Terrace, Charles Henry St., Birmingham.
Commemorative Information
Memorial: YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL, Ieper, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium
Grave Reference/
Panel Number: Panel 46 - 48 and 50
Location: Ypres (now Ieper) is a town in the Province of West Flanders. The Memorial is situated at the eastern side of the town on the road to Menin (Menen) and Courtrai (Kortrijk).
Historical Information: The Menin Gate 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 1914 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 deteriorating weather. The campaign finally came to a close in November with the capture of Passchendaele. 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 who died in the Salient before 16 August 1917. Those 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. New Zealand casualties are commemorated at Tyne cot and on memorails at Buttes New British Cemetery and Messines Ridge British Cemetery. The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial now bears the names of more than 54,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield with sculpture by Sir William Reid-Dick, was unveiled by Lord Plumer in July 1927.
W J GARBETT
Private
288094
1st/8th Bn., Gordon Highlanders
who died on
Monday, 22nd July 1918.
Commemorative Information
Cemetery: TERLINCTHUN BRITISH CEMETERY, WIMILLE, Pas de Calais, France
Grave Reference/
Panel Number: XVI. A.A. 19.
Location: Terlincthun British Cemetery is situated on the northern outskirts of Boulogne. From Calais follow the A16 to Boulogne, come off at Junction 3 and follow the D96E for Wimereux Sud. Continue on this road for approximately 1 kilometre when the Cemetery will be found on the left hand side of the road.
Historical Information: The first rest camps for Commonwealth forces were established near Terlincthun in August 1914 and during the whole of the First World War, Boulogne and Wimereux housed numerous hospitals and other medical establishments. The cemetery at Terlincthun was begun in June 1918 when the space available for service burials in the civil cemeteries of Boulogne and Wimereux was exhausted. It was used chiefly for burials from the base hospitals, but Plot IV Row C contains the graves of 46 RAF personnel killed at Marquise in September 1918 in a bombing raid by German aircraft. In July 1920, the cemetery contained more than 3,300 burials, but for many years Terlincthun remained an 'open' cemetery and graves continued to be brought into it from isolated sites and other burials grounds throughout France where maintenance could not be assured. During the Second World War, there was heavy fighting in the area in 1940. Wimille was devastated when from 22 - 25 May, the garrison at Boulogne fought a spirited delaying action covering the withdrawal to Dunkirk. There was some fighting in Wimille again in 1944. The cemetery suffered considerable damage both from the shelling in 1940 and under the German occupation. The cemetery now contains 4,378 Commonwealth burials of the First World War and more than 200 war graves of other nationalities, most of them German. Second World War burials number 149. The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker.