Essex Farm Military Cemetery: Advanced Dressing Station

The Ypres Salient

Essex Farm Military Cemetery

Essex Farm Cemetery Dressing Station Ypres Salient War Graves Index page British French German The Ypres Salient The Ypres Salient Map Battles Ypres/Ieper Poperinge Museums Cemeteries Accommodation 1914-1918 Reference The Western Front The Ypres Salient Second Battle of Ypres The Somme War Graves Tracing relatives Resources & Links Bibliography Remembering Poppy Umbrella Hear Last Post 'In Flanders Fields' Armistice Day in Ypres Flanders Memorial Poppy Gardens of Remembrance Interpretations Poems About the site Who we are Rembrella		Advanced Dressing Station (ADS), Essex Farm Military Cemetery From 2 - 17 April 1915 the British Army took over from the French Army in the sectors north-east and east of Ypres. For details and map see the Second Battle of Ypres Battle Study: Prelude - New Allied Troops take over the Ypres Salient front line. The map shows the Yser Canal north of Ypres and the 7 bridges across it in the spring of 1915. (For details see Second Battle of Ypres Battle Study: Battle of Gravenstafel Ridge - Canadian Engineers prepare canal bridges for demolition.) The blue dashed line indicates the Franco-British Army boundary north of Ypres town. On 22 April the Fourth German Army launched a surprise attack with gas on the French front line sector north of Ypres. (For details see Second Battle of Ypres Battle Study: Battle of Gravenstafel Ridge - "Un nuage jaune-vert": A yellow-green cloud engulfs the French.) In the early hours of 23 April Major John McCrae took up a position on the west bank of the Yser Canal just north of Bridge No. 4 (known as Brielen Bridge) with the 1st Brigade Canadian Field Artillery. John McCrae was a doctor by profession. He was second in command of the brigade and also brigade surgeon. During the following days John McCrae tended the wounded in the dugouts cut into the spoilbank of the canal. It is believed to be the location where he wrote his famous poem In Flanders Fields after the death of a friend, Lieutenant Helmer.
		The photograph is taken looking north, showing the spoilbank of the western canal bank. The trees on the right line the canal. The flag on the left is the location of the dugouts dug into the spoilbank, with their doors facing west.
		A British Army Dressing Station was established in the rough dugouts on the western canal bank at the rear of Essex Farm Military Cemetery. Gradually during the war the dugouts were reinforced and built up with concrete. The photograph shows the flooded remains of the original concrete dugouts, which had fallen into disrepair until the late 1990s.
		The bunkers were renovated in the late 1990s.
		This is a sketch (original size: foolscap) drawn by A R Watt of the 69th Field Ambulance dated 1916. It shows the numerous concrete rooms and a one way route for ambulance cars. The path on the right of the sketch leads from the cemetery (bottom) to the canal bank (top). The path can be seen in the photograph below. The original sketch is held in the collection at the Army Medical Services Museum at Keogh Barracks, Ash Vale, Aldershot, Hampshire.
		This is a photograph of the path leading from the Boezinge - Ieper road onto the west bank of the Yser Canal (Ieper-Ijser Canal). The path passes Essex Farm Military Cemetery on the right. On the left, opposite the corner of the cemetery in the centre of the photo the path passes by the concrete bunkers of the Army Dressing Station dug into the canal spoilbank.
		Acknowledgements Sketch by kind permission of the Army Medical Services Museum, Keogh Barracks, Ash Vale, Aldershot, Hampshire. The museum has reopened in May 2004 after a complete refurbishment. Photographs (1) Western Ieper-Ijser canal bank, 2003 © www.greatwar.co.uk (2) Flooded concrete bunkers, ADS, 1990 © www.greatwar.co.uk (2) Renovated concrete bunkers, ADS, 1999 © www.greatwar.co.uk (3) Essex Farm Military Cemetery © www.greatwar.co.uk Copyright Joanna Legg & Graham Parker © 2004 All rights reserved