PROJECT : Passchendaele Archives_1917
Education
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The Trustees of the Museum are pleased to sponsor this page for the Project "Passchendaele Archives" on behalf of The Memorial Museum, Zonnebeke.
DID YOUR GRANDFATHER FIGHT AND DIE IN PASSCHENDAELE BETWEEN 12 JULY 1917 AND 15 NOVEMBER 1917
The Aims of the Project are;
To build a personal Archive of thousands of files which may be researched at the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917
To create a database with the extracts of all files and extensive research facilities to provide for example the exact location of death on trench maps
To select records of 100 men to be stored at the New Visitors Centre to be erected near Tyne Cot Cemetery, one for each day of the Battle
The composition of a book on Passchendaele 1917 based upon the stories of the fallen
The third battle of Ypres, known forever as Passchendaele 1917 was one of the great conflicts of the first World War. A hundred days of heavy fighting resulted in over half a million Allied casualties for but a gain of only a few miles. The dead comprised mainly British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and South African troops and on the great memorial wall at Tyne Cot Cemetery are inscribed the names of 35,000 British and New Zealand dead who fell at Passchendaele. Many of the missing are buried in military cemeteries about the Ypres Salient as 'A Soldier of the Great War' and 'Known to God', but most lie still undiscovered in Flanders Fields.
A visit to a military cemetery is always an inspiring, and emotional experience but the fact remains that the Missing have only headstones and memorials whereon they are remembered. In the Passchendaele Archives at the Memorial Museum Zonnebeke, we have created a living memorial where we are endeavouring to put faces and stories to the names of the Missing by building a personal record with photographs, family documentation and information from military sources. To avoid a duplication of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database we will only create a file if a photograph is available and only if the man concerned lost his life between 12 July 1917 and 15 November 1917.
To this end we seek your help in providing family material which you may feel will assist us in building our Passchendaele Archives. Photographs, letters, personal papers and reminiscences of family members will be gratefully received. If you do not wish to donate original material, copies are acceptable. As a measure of our thanks and your cooperation, we shall endeavour to discover, on your behalf, what exactly happened to your loved one. you will receive wherever possible a trench map, marking the approximate place where he was killed or mortally wounded With this comes a short report based on the war diaries of his unit.
If you have a family member who died at Passchendaele 1917 and would like information or assistance on how to assemble and collate information for our project, please contact; The Passchendaele Archives, Jan Van der Fraenen, Ieperstraat 5, Zonnebeke 8980, Belgium. Tel: 0032 (51) 77 04 41 Fax: 0032 (51) 780750 Web site: www.zonnebeke.be Email: [email protected]