Plaque (wood, glass, photographs) – Thunder Bay

This memorial is dedicated to Lieutenant Albert N.P. Service. It was erected by Madame Longepe of Paris, France and the Thunder Bay Military Museum.

Inscription

In Memory of
LIEUTENANT ALBERT N.P. SERVICE
52nd Btn., Canadian Expeditionary Force, (New Ontario)
Who Died On
Friday, 18th August 1916

Cemetery

RAILWAY DUGOUTS BURIAL GROUND
Ieper, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium

Grave Reference / Panel Number
VI. J. 1.

Location

Railway Dugouts Burial Ground (Transport Farm) is located 2 kilometres south-east
of Ieper town centre, on the Komenseweg, a road connecting Ieper to Komen (N336).
From Ieper town centre the Komenseweg is located via
the Rijselsestraat, through the Rijselpoort (Lille Gate) and crossing the Ieper ring road, towards
Armentieres and Lille. The road name then changes to Rijselseweg. 1 kilometre
along the Rijselseweg lies the left hand turn onto the Komenseweg. The cemetery
itself is located 1.2 kilometres along the Komenseweg on the right hand side of
the road.

Historical Information

At 2 kilometres west of the village of Zillebeke the railway runs on an
embankment, overlooking a small farmstead known to the British Army as Transport
Farm. It is a place screened by slightly rising ground to east, and burials
on the site of the cemetery began in April, 1915. They were continued until the
Armistice, especially in 1916 and 1917, when Advanced Dressing Stations were
placed in the Dugouts and the farm. They were made in small groups, without any
definite arrangement
and in the summer of 1917 a considerable number were
obliterated by shell fire before they could be marked. The names “Railway
Dugouts” and “Transport Farm” were used indifferently, and both are included in
the present name. At the time of the Armistice, 1,705 graves were known and
marked. Other graves were then brought in from the battlefields and small
cemeteries in the neighbourhoods, and 258 known graves, destroyed by artillery
fire, were specially commemorated. The latter were mainly in the present Plots
IV and VII. there are now nearly 2,500 1914-1918 war casualties commemorated in
this site. Of these, over 400 are unidentified and 261 are represented by special
memorials. Other special memorials record the names of 42 soldiers from Canada
and 30 from the United Kingdom, buried in other cemeteries, whose graves were
destroyed in later fighting. The cemetery covers an area of 16,374 square metres
and is enclosed by a rubble wall, except where it borders the pond. VALLEY
COTTAGES CEMETERY, ZILLEBEKE, was among a group of cottages on “Observation
Road”, which runs eastward from Zillebeke village. It contained the graves of 111
soldiers from the United Kingdom and Canada. It was in an exposed position during
the greater part of the war, and of the graves in it are represented by special
memorials in Railway Dugouts Burial Ground. TRANSPORT FARM ANNEXE was about 90
metres south-east of the Railway Dugouts Cemetery, on the road to
Verbrandenmolen. The graves in it were removed to Perth Cemetery (China Wall),
Zillebeke
but one officer, whose grave was not found, is specially commemorated
here.

Photographs and Historical Information was Graciously Provided By
Madame Anne Longepe of Paris, France
Sister of Lieutenant Albert N.P. Service & Granddaughter of
The Poet
Robert W. Service

Rhymes of a
Red Crossman

by
Robert W. Service
Author of ‘The Spell of the Yukon’
‘Ballads of a Cheechako’ [The wording is not clear in the photograph]

Illustrated by
Charles L. Wrenn

New York
Barse & Hopkins
Publishing

To the Memory of
My Brother,
Lieutenant Albert Service
Canadian Infantry
Killed in Action, France
August 1918

THESE PHOTOGRAPHS WERE PRESENTED BY
Madame Anne Longepe of Paris, France
Grand-daughter of
The Poet Robert W. Service

LIEUTENANT ALBERT SERVICE WAS IN THE
52nd Btn. C.E.F. New Ontario

Ce mémorial est dédié au lieutenant Albert N.P. Service. Il a été érigé par Mme Longepe, de Paris (France) et le Musée militaire de Thunder Bay.

Le texte de l’inscription figure dans la section anglaise.