Welsh Memorial Park, Langemark

History (Source: Wikipedia) 

The Welsh National Memorial Park is a war memorial in Langemark for soldiers of World War I, located near the Pilkem Ridge in the former Ypres Salient. It commemorates the services of men and women from Welsh origin(Wales), wherever they served during the Great War as part of the Allied Powers, as well as the non-Welsh soldiers serving in Welsh formations.

 

The memorial is located to the north of Ypres, approximately halfway in between Pilkem and Langemark. It stands on the ridge to the south west of Langemark, where in the summer of 1917 the Battle of Pilckem Ridge (31 July – 2 August 1917) was fought, and where many Welsh units took part this opening attack of the main part of the Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres, 31 July – 10 November 1917). The battle saw the participation of the 38th (Welsh) Division, which fought through that area in July 1917 and earned Haig's comment that they were one of his best divisions. The 29th Division included among its units the 2nd Battalion South Wales Borderers and the 2nd Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment, and the Guards Division included the Welsh Guards, all of whom are represented in the nearby Artillery Wood Cemetery, along with men from the Welch Regiment and the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Among those killed near here on 31 July 1917 was 30-year-old Ellis Humphrey Evans ("Hedd Wyn"), the famous Welsh language poet who was posthumously awarded the bard's chair at the 1917 National Eisteddfod.