ANZAC Day – 25 April

Railway Dugouts Cemetery

(Transport Farm)

Photograph: Creative Commons

On the 25th April 1917 the 1st Australian Tunnelling Coy, whilst at Hill 60, Belgium, suffered their biggest loss in one day during the war whilst testing detonators in a dugout. 

During this process there was an explosion in the dugout killing and burying the occupants. Ten men were killed in the incident. Eight lie buried in Railway Dugouts Cemetery close to Hill 60. Seven are buried together in plot IV, row C (pictured below) and one, Second Lieutenant Evans, in plot VII, row G.* The other two are buried in Poperinge New Military Cemetery next to each other in plot I, row E1.

Particularly poignant given the date.

May they rest in peace.

Words and photograph by Roger Steward, Ypres Battlefield Tours

*

Second Lieutenant	GLYNDWR DAVID EVANS, 33
Sapper Sapper Sapper Sapper Sapper 2nd Corporal Sapper Captain Lieutenant	C GLEW ARTHUR ALVA GRAY, 39 KENNETH GEORGE HAMILTON, 21 W MANHOOD LYLE RANGER, 18 JOHN WILLIAM SAXTON, 22 JOHN WALLACE, 45 WILFRED PERCEVAL AVERY ARTHUR ELTON TANDY, 25

*Lieutenant Glyndwr David Evans was thirty-three when he died. He was the son of John and Martha Evans of Craigie Lea, Gilderthorpe Avenue, Randwick, New South Wales. The family was originally from Treorchy, Rhondda, Wales.

From Wales to New South Wales, a life cut short on 25 April 1917.

We will remember them.