Staden Moonlight Massacre Memorial

The plaque honors the soldiers who died in the night of 1 to 2 December 1917, when the Allies recaptured the ridge between Westrozebeke and Passendale from the Germans during the Third Battle of Ypres.  It is a relatively little-known operation that is known as a tactical blunder. It was a cold night and the battlefield was snowy and the moon was full, making the soldiers highly visible and an easy target for the German machine guns on high. Hence, this attack on Hill 52 was later nicknamed the 'moonlight massacre'.

1,689 Allied soldiers died that night. On the German side, the death toll is estimated at eight hundred.