In Memory of
WILLIAM HENRY SELWOOD
Private
10860
1st Bn., Somerset Light Infantry
who died on
Sunday, 2nd May 1915. Age 28.
| Additional Information: |
Son of Sarah Jane Selwood, of High St.,
Wickwar, Glos. |
Commemorative Information
| Memorial: |
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL, Ieper, West-Vlaanderen,
Belgium |
Grave Reference/
Panel Number: |
Panel 21
|
| 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).
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| 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 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 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. |
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