WAR GRAVES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 124, 30 May 1927, Page 9

WAR GRAVES

JERUSALEM CEMETERY

A SHINING SQUARE

VIEW FROM THE SITE

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 23rd, April. , On 7th May Viscount Allenby will unveil the memorial in the Jerusalem war cemetery, and Sir James Parr will unveil the New Zealand memorial in the chapel. , The cemetery (writes the Jerusalem correspondent of the "Morning Post") lies on a plot of land given, as the inscription in English, Arabic, and Hebrew at the entry records, by the people of Palestine. The sito is undoubtedly the ideal one for such a memorial. It is situated just below the ridge of Mount Scopus, at the top of a gentle amphitheatre-like slope, now green, with young corn,, and commands a magnificent diorama to the south-west of Jerusalem, from which it is about two miles distant on the road that leads to the Mount of Olives. Visible, a shining square, from almost j every quarter of the city, the site,looks down over the scenes of countless mili ' tary exploits) from the capture of the | (City of Jebus by David to the entry of Lord Allenby. Near, at hand stood the headquarters of Titus; to the west stands up the minaret of Nebi Samwil, the burial place of the Prophet Samuel, and the scene of some of the most costly fighting of the 1917 campaign; while the very, site of the cemeiery %vas fought over during the furious counter-attacks thai; followed the taking of Jerusalem. AND PEACE. , - '-I' The cemetery has been built of local stone,; to the designs of Sir John Burnet. The task of supervising the'con- . struction was entrusted by the Imperial "War Graves Commission to Contain C. Turville Gardner,- who has superintended the erection of every cemetery from Akaba to Aleppo. _ The plan suggests dignity and peace. Its strong simple lines, culminating in the. flat cupola of the memorial chapel, accord well with the severe contours and brilliant atmosphere of Palestine. An entrance, surmounted by the Imperial Arms, and flanked by the cognis- ';'■ *nees-of a n the regiments which took .part in the campaign, gives upon the ; gently inclining area . which contains \;the graves. There are 2534, represent--'.JPg .107. .units, the heaviest tolls being .'653 from the London regiments, 173 from the Australian Forces, 149 from we Welsh. Fusiliers, 101 from; the Devons, 56 from the Machine Gun Corps,!s3 from the Royal Field Artil:'W> 48 from the Royal West Kents, ,40 each from the King's Shropshire Light Infantry and the Middlesex, and 34 from the New Zealand Forces. ; .■:. Each grave is marked by its headstone, quarried and worked in Eng- * land; bearing the name, rank, regiment, regimental crest, emblem of faith, and sometimes a short inscription. In the middle.of the plot stands of Sacrifice, while in a recess in the back wall is the beautiful memorial ..-.chapel, erected by the members or the Egyptian Expeditionary Horce in memory of their fallen comrades. Ila a niche over the brouzo door*, of....the '.'little circular shrine stands a statue of St. George. NEW ZEALAND MEMORIAL. . •;.''■ We jnterior/o* .«*<» chapel has boon decorated by the Government of New /ealfmd with marble 1 panelling and symboljc mosaics, the work of Mr. Anninff : Bell.' The* screen.walls flanking the chapel near tablets recording ; the names of all those, to the number of more than two thousand, who fell in Egypt and Palestine, and whose graves are not known. At each- end of this flanking wall is a pylon, the one commemorating Australia's dead, the other those of New Zealand. Before, the entrance to the chapel lies the Stone of Remembrance, with the inscription: Their name liveth for evermore." are always at work. The 5000 pine trees which form the enclosing belt are growing well, while inside white lilac trees, small as yet, are just now in bloom. Every plot is edged with rosemary, and every year that passes sees the cemetery more beautir . fully clothed with green. .On Easter Eye year by year a memorial service. -• is heia, which the High Commissioner attends. The graves are strewn with flowers, the chief of which, by a happy provision of Nature, is the wild scarlet anemone, so nearly identical in , colour, and shape with the poppy of Flanders.; . ; -85; street.