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Pas de Calais – Etaples Military Cemetery

Private Frederick Smith, who died on 23rd July 1916, and Private Thomas Knight, who died on 6th November 1918, is buried in Étaples Military Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France (plot XLIX. B. 21). 

Étaples is a town about 27 kilometres south of Boulogne.  The Military Cemetery is to the north of the town, on the west side of the road to Boulogne.

During the First World War, the area around Étaples was the scene of immense concentrations of Commonwealth reinforcement camps and hospitals.  It was remote from attack, except from aircraft, and accessible by railway from both the northern or the southern battlefields.  In 1917, 100,000 troops were camped among the sand dunes and the hospitals, which included 11 general, one stationary and four Red Cross hospitals and a convalescent depot, capable of dealing with 22,000 wounded or sick.

The cemetery contains 10,771 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, the earliest dating from May 1915.  It also contains 662 non-Commonwealth burials, mainly German.  Private Knight died just five days before the end of the war.  The cemetery is the largest Commission cemetery in France and was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.