Head back toward Ypres on the N8. ¹³ When you get to Ypres, follow signs for the N308 towards Poperinge. When you reach Poperinge, head on the R33 Poperinge ring road. The R33 (Poperinge) continues to the left hand junction with the N38 Frans-Vlaanderenweg. 800 metres further along the N38 is a left hand turning onto Lenestraat. Take the next right on to Boescheepseweg. The cemetery is 2km along Boescheepseweg on the right hand side of the road. In late 2012, a new visitor centre was built which offers ample parking.

Context

A personal favourite of the author; there are a huge variety of burials on what is the site of several Casualty Clearing Stations (CCS). It is the second largest cemetery in area and offers an opportunity to discuss supply lines, medical treatment and women in the war. The excellent new visitor centre is also worth seeing; it both highlights the stories of some of those buried here whilst focusing on the medical history of the CCS. It is free to enter.

Orientation

At the back of the cemetery was the old railway line which took supplies to the front line and brought wounded men back to the CCS for treatment. Gather the group near the Stone of Remembrance.

Spiel

Lijssenthoek cemetery contains 10,784 burials; 7,332 are British with the rest being from a huge variety of nationalities. There are other Commonwealth nations, German, American and Chinese burials here. The reason for the huge variety is closely tied to the history of this location. The farm here was used by the French as an evacuation hospital in 1914, with the British establishing a Casualty Clearing Station in 1915 and the French using the site again in 1918.

Injured soldiers from the front lines, where we have been this morning, would be sent back behind the lines to receive medical treatment. Arailway line, which ran at the back of this cemetery, brought many of the men here. Given the nature of many of the injuries and the rudimentary medical treatment available, many men died and thus this cemetery was here right from 1914. It is notable that King George V visited Lijssenthoek during his 1922 Pilgrimage to the battlefields.

Walk back toward the entrance, but do not leave the cemetery; instead walk down the first row of graves – to your left as you look at the entrance from inside the cemetery. You are looking for the grave of Nellie Spindler (XVI–A–3). Gather around the headstone.

Among the 10,000 men in this cemetery lies one woman. This is the grave of Staff Nurse Nellie Spindler. She is one of only two British female First World War casualties buried in Belgium. She was from Wakefield in West Yorkshire. On 21 August 1917 she was working at a CCS in Brandhoek when it came under fire from German artillery. What happened to Nellie is described by the sister in charge of the CCS:

‘Bits [of shells and debris] came over everywhere, pitching at one’s feet as we rushed to the scene of the action, and one just missed one of my Night Sisters getting into bed in our Compound. I knew by the crash where it must have gone and found Sister E. as white as paper but smiling happily and comforting the terrified patients. Bits tore through her Ward but hurt no one. Having to be thoroughly jovial to the patients on these occasions helps us considerably ourselves. Then I came on to the shell hole and the wrecked tents in the Sisters’ Quarters at [CCS] 44. A group of stricken M.O.’s [medical officers] were standing about and in one tent the Sister was dying. The piece went through her from back to front near her heart. She was only conscious a few minutes and only lived 20 minutes. She was in bed asleep. The Sister who shared her tent had been sent down the day before because she couldn’t stand the noise and the day and night conditions. The Sister who should have been in the tent which was nearest was out for a walk or she would have been blown to bits; everything in her tent wasu2026 It all made one feel sick.’¹⁴