Location

Poperinghe New Military Cemetery is located 10.5 km west of Ieper town centre, in the town of Poperinge itself. From Ieper, Poperinge is reached via the N308. From Ieper town centre the Poperingseweg (N308), is reached via Elverdingsestraat then directly over two small roundabouts in the J. Capronstraat. The Poperingseweg is a continuation of the J. Capronstraat and begins after a prominent railway level crossing.

On reaching the town of Poperinge, the left hand turning from the N308 leads onto the R33 Poperinge ring road. 1 km along the N33 lies the right hand turning onto Deken De Bolan. The cemetery is located 100 metres from the ring road level with Onze Vrouwedreef on the right hand side of the road.

Historical Information

The town of Poperinghe (now Poperinge) was of great importance during the First World War because, although occasionally bombed or bombarded at long range, it was the nearest place to Ypres (now Ieper) which was both considerable in size and reasonably safe.

It was at first a centre for casualty clearing stations, but by 1916 it became necessary to move these units further back and field ambulances took their places.

The earliest Commonwealth graves in the town are in the communal cemetery.

The Old Military Cemetery was made in the course of the First Battle of Ypres and was closed, so far as Commonwealth burials are concerned, at the beginning of May 1915.

Poperinge Communal Cemetery
Poperinge Old Military Cemetery

The New Military Cemetery was established in June 1915. The New Military Cemetery contains 677 Commonwealth burials of the First World War and 271 French war graves.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.

Second Lieutenant William Wallace
254th Tunnelling Company Royal Engineers
Died 31 July 1917, aged 40

Son of Robert Wallace and the late Elizabeth Wallace, of Twywell, Thrapston, Northants. There is a window in Twywell Church to his memory. An experienced Civil Engineer, he came from Rhodesia to offer his services.

Grave: II G 40

Lieutenant Colonel George Baker
5th Canadian Mounted Rifles (Quebec Regt.)
Died 02 June 1916, aged 38

Son of the Hon. George Barnard Baker KC (member of the Senate of Canada), and Jane Baker. Lt Col G H Baker was a member of the House of Commons, Canada.

Grave: II G 1

Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Stoney Smith DSO
1st Bn Leicestershire Regiment
Died 22 October 1915, aged 47

Son of the late Arthur and Mrs Smith; husband of S Smith, of Burnbrae, Leckhampton, Cheltenham. Born Hampstead, London.

Grave: I E 23

Major Alfred Osborn Wraith
254th Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers
Died 13 June 1917, aged 33

Son of Ald. G H Wraith and F Wraith, of Spennymoor, Co Durham. Went as a Mining Engineer to South Africa in 1911. Fought in German South West Africa. Landed in France November 1916

Grave: II E 12

Shot at Dawn

Second Lieutenant Eric Skeffington Poole
11th Bn West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales's Own)
Shot on 10 December 1916, aged 31

Son of Henry Skeffington Poole and Florence Poole, of 2, Rectory Place, Guildford, Surrey. Born Nova Scotia.

Grave: II A 11

Eric Poole was born in Nova Scotia, Canada on 20 January 1885 and gained his first military experience in the 63rd Regiment of the Halifax Rifles, with whom he served for two years between 1903 and 1905.

Sometime after this the family moved to Guildford in England.

Following service in the Honourable Artillery Company as a driver, Poole was commissioned into the 14 Bn West Yorkshire Regiment on 3 May 1915. At the end of May 1916 he was sent to join 11 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment who were part of 23rd Division and preparing for the battle of the Somme.

On 7 July 1916 Poole was hit by debris thrown up by an artillery burst at Contalmaison. Poole was hospitalised with shell-shock and was only declared fit for duty on 1 September. A few weeks later the Battalion was moved from Ieper back to the Somme.

Poole later stated at his Court Martial that this injury caused him at times get confused and... have great difficulty in making up my mind. One of these occasions would appear to have been on 5 October 1916 as his Platoon was moving up towards the front line trenches at Flers.

Just how he managed to wander off from his unit without anyone noticing has never been shown but by midnight his absence had been noted.

Two days later on 7 October Poole was stopped near Henencourt Wood which is nearly 6 kilometres west of Albert and a long way from where he was supposed to have been.

Poole was medically examined on 21 October with the report suggesting that his mental state precluded his ability to deliberately desert. Despite that, his Army Commander Lt General Sir Henry Rawlinson ordered a Court Martial with a charge of Desertion.

This took place on 24 November at Poperinge in Belgium.

Despite hearing evidence that Poole was unaware of the seriousness of his not going forward with his men on the night of 5 October, and that mentally he was highly strung, the five man panel of officers found Poole guilty as charged and sentenced him to death.

Following the verdict Poole was medically examined again on 3 December. The Medical Board was headed by Lt Colonel H Martin RAMC who had been the same officer to have passed Poole as fit for duty following his shell-shock injury.

Their findings were that Poole:

Was of sound mind and capable of appreciating the nature and quality of his action in absenting himself without leave on October 5th 1916, and that such act was wrong.

That his mental powers are less than average. He appears dull under cross examination, and his perception is slow.
(Their emphasis)

On 6 December General Sir Douglas Haig confirmed the sentence which was carried out at 0725 hours on 10 December in Poperinge Town Hall.

Eric Poole had become the first officer to be shot, and one of only three who would be so.

Haig gave as one of his reasons for confirming the sentence that:

Such a case is more serious in the case of an officer than a man, and it is also highly important that all ranks should realise the law is the same for an officer as a private.

Poole was one of only three officers shot during the course of the war.

Edwin Dyett
John Paterson

Shell-shock can lead to insanity

I have said elsewhere that I don't really want to get into the rights and wrongs of the system but it is quite evident from the statistics that the officers were in general given preferential treatment.

As an example.

Following the Sinn Fein uprising in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916 Captain Bowen-Colthurst arrested a man called Francis Skeffington who had been stopped by troops on the Portobello Bridge in the city. Skeffington, a known and agitating anti-war pacifist, was that night taken out as a hostage by the British Army on a raid. During the course of the raid Skeffington witnessed Bowen-Colthurst shoot dead a 17 year old boy. The following morning Skeffington and two journalists: Thomas Dickons and Patrick McIntyre were summarily executed at Bowen-Colthurst's orders.

The plot then thickened, for his immediate superiors attempted to hush the entire affair up and it was only at the insistence of Major Sir Francis Vane of the Royal Munster Fusiliers that Bowen-Colthurst found himself Court Martialled.

Bowen-Colthurst successfully pleaded insanity arising from shell shock as a means of escaping the death sentence. Released from a mental institution in 1922 he went off to lead a new life in Canada.

Perversely it was Sir Francis Vane who came off worst. Due to his interference in the matter he found himself relegated to unemployment and dismissed from the army.