Description:Interpretation panel at the Commonwealth War cemetery at Broadhurst Green, Cannock Chase.
Transcription:
"The British Home Front during the First and Second World Wars.
During the two world wars Britain became an island fortress and a base for equipping and training troops and launching land, sea and air operations. In both conflicts, the skies above the island and the seas that surround her became the scene of fierce fighting involving aircraft, submarines and warships. Britain was also the main centre for the medical care of men and women serving in the armed forces. Thousands of hospitals located across the country were used to treat service personnel who were wounded, fell victim to disease, or were injured in accidents at home or overseas.
Many of the servicemen buried in the United Kingdom were killed in action in the air while defending the home front. Others, mostly naval men, drowned in British coastal waters. However, the majority were wounded or contracted disease on active service, were transported back to Britain, and subsequently died while undergoing hospital treatment or recovering in private homes.
Today over 170,000 men and women who died in the United Kingdom, while serving in the armed forces during the first and second world wars, are buried in cemeteries and churchyards throughout the country. Some burials form small war graves plots within larger cemeteries, but the majority are scattered throughout cemetery grounds. In all, there are Commonwealth war graves in almost 12,500 different locations throughout the United Kingdom.
Cannock Chase War Cemetery
In the autumn of 1914, the British Army began constructing camps at Brocton and Rugeley on Cannock Chase. Housing up to 40,000 men at any one time, the camps were used first as transit camps for trained soldiers heading to the Western Front. Cannock Chase subsequently became a training facility for the various Commonwealth units, and as many as 500,000 troops were trained here over the course of the war. Among these were the officers and men of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade, who saw service first in Egypt and then in Northern France. As a result of their experiences, particularly the taking of the village of Messines in Belgium in June 1917, the men of the 5th Battalion of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade were transferred to Cannock Chase to train recruits in the new tactics required by trench warfare. As well as basic training, such as drill and general fitness, the New Zealanders prepared their comrades for the Western Front by carrying out night work and using model trenches.
A hospital serving both Brocton and Rugeley camps was established at Brindley Heath in 1916. The hospital had 12 wards with a total 1,000 beds and served the camps for the remainder of the war, as well as housing convalescing soldiers from the Western Front. The cemetery was formed to serve as the final resting place for men who died while being treated in the hospital, the first burials dating from 1917. The majority of the Commonwealth burials are New Zealanders, many of whom died in the flu pandemic that broke out towards the end of the war. Influenza or ‘Spanish Flu’ was a global pandemic that killed up to six per cent of the entire global population between 1918 and 1920.
The cemetery also contains the graves of over 280 German servicemen, who died in Brocton Internment Camp and hospital and three Commonwealth burials of the Second World War. A short walk from here lies Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery, which was established in 1959 to accommodate the graves of all German nationals who lost their lives in the United Kingdom during the two world wars and whose graves were not located in cemeteries and plots maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The photograph - Soldiers of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade sitting an examination at Brocton Camp, about 1919."
Acknowledgment for the above information: The Commonwealth War Graves Commission.