Jan Theuninck
TYNE COT
when you left
for the front
you were
living heroes
and now
you’re on top
of the hill
where only
poppies
blow………
©Copyright 2004 by Jan Theuninck
Author’s Note: My poessay, Tyne Cot, has been put on the cortensteel wall of the new library in Zonnebeke, Belgium, the village where I was born. This cortensteel construction is located in the Park where the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 is situated. The museum tells the story of one of the bloodiest battles of WW1, the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917.
Jan Theuninck stands outside the newly constructed Library in Zonnebeke, Belgium: March 2008
Tyne Cot Cross of Sacrifice: Within the Cemetery today, three German pillboxes are visible. A fourth was covered, at the suggestion of King George V, by the Cross of Sacrifice, although the blockhouse wall can still be seen at the base behind the bronze wreath. It should be noted that 8,366 or nearly 70% of the burials are of unknown soldiers. This is testament to the intense fighting, the nature of the ground during the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), and the famed mud of the salient.