Location

Outtersteene is a village about 5 kilometres south-west of Bailleul. The Communal Cemetery Extension is north-east of the village on the road to Bailleul. From Bailleul follow the D 23 to Outtersteene, the cemetery is on the right hand side of the road just as you approach the outskirts of the town.

Historical Information

Outtersteene was captured by the III Corps on the 13th October, 1914; but no British burials took place there for nearly three years.

In August, 1917, during the Battles of Ypres, the 2nd, 53rd and 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Stations came to Outtersteene, and the first and last of these remained until March, 1918.

The hamlet was captured by the Germans on the 12th April, 1918, and retaken by the 9th, 29th and 31st Divisions, with the ridge beyond it, on the 18th and 19th August; but the cemetery was not used again during hostilities.

After the Armistice, graves were brought into the Cemetery Extension from the battlefields surrounding Outtersteene and from certain small cemeteries.

The cemetery was used again during the 1939-45 War.

In the western part are the graves of soldiers from the United Kingdom who fell in 1940, in the fighting which covered the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force to Dunkirk.

There are now nearly 1,500, 1914-18 and 100, 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, one-third from the 1914-18 War are unidentified and 14 special headstones are erected to nine soldiers from the United Kingdom, four from Australia and one of the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry, known or believed to be buried in unknown graves. "A" Company, 18th Durham Light Infantry, erected a memorial cross in this Cemetery.

The German graves have been removed to Steenwerck German Cemetery.

From the 1939-45 War, one grave which could not be precisely determined, is commemorated by a special memorial, inscribed Buried near this spot; while over 20 are unidentified.

The Extension covers an area of 4,298 square metres and is enclosed by a concrete curb. The Record House is a square red-brick building faced with stone, open in front.

The more important of the small cemeteries concentrated into Outtersteene Communal Cemetery Extension were the following

Strazeele Road Cemetery, Strazeele, about 800 metres West of Strazeele, which is North-West of Outtersteene. Here were buried 18 soldiers from Australia and one from the United Kingdom, who fell in May, June and August, 1918.

Caestre Road Cemetery, on the North side of Strazeele, containing the graves of nine soldiers from Australia, three from the United Kingdom, one from Guernsey, and two of unknown units, who fell in April, 1918.

Vieux-Berquin Communal Cemetery Extension, on the road from Outtersteene to Vieux-Berquin. In this Extension, on the East side of the Communal Cemetery, were buried 17 soldiers from the United Kingdom and one from Australia, who fell in August and September 1918.

The burial of four Australians: April 2005