Alfred De La Mare ¹

  General Notes:

From CWGC website



The Ploegsteert Memorial stands in Berks Cemetery Extension, which is

located 12.5 kilometres south of leper town centre, on the N365

leading from leper to Mesen (Messines), Ploegsteert and on to

Armentieres. From leper town centre the Rijselsestraat runs from the

market square, through the Lille Gate (Rijselpoort) and directly over

the crossroads with the leper ring road. The road name then changes

to the Rijselseweg (N336). 3.5 kilometres along the N336 lies a fork

junction with the N365. The N365, which forms the right hand fork,

leads to the town of Mesen. The Cemetery lies 3 kilometres beyond

Mesen on the right hand side of the N365, and opposite Hyde Park

Corner Royal Berks Cemetery. The Memorial commemorates over

11,000 men who have no known grave. They fought throughout the

War on Belgian soil beside French troops, and died in France or Belgium

when the frontier was of little interest in this area in which trench

warfare lasted longest. The Memorial is a covered circular colonnade,

20 metres across and 11 metres high, enclosing an open space, and is

entered by an opening between two stone lions. The names of the dead

are carved on panels set in the walls of the colonnade. They belonged

to thirty-six different Divisions and to a hundred Regiments; of these

Regiments the Rifle Brigade with 559 names, the Northumberland

Fusiliers with 535 and the Durham Light Infantry with 444 claim the

largest individual shares.

The Memorial in Berks Cemetery Extension, Ploegsteert, is one of those

erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to record the

names of the officers and men who fell in the Great War and whose

graves are not known. It serves the area from the line Caestre-

Dranoutre-Warneton, on the north to the line Haverskerque-Estaires-

Fournes on the south, in which the best-known features are the towns

of Hazebrouck, Merville, Bailleul and Armentieres, the Forest of Nieppe,

and Ploegsteert Wood; and it covers the period from the arrival of the

III Corps in this area in 1914 to the date of the Armistice with

Germany. The Battles of Ypres and Messines fall to the north of these

limits, and the Offensives of 1915 mainly to the south; the normal state

of the area, during the greater part of the War, was one of trench

warfare. The Memorial is a covered circular colonnade, 20 metres

across and eleven metres high, enclosing an open space, and entered

by an opening between two stone lions. The names of the dead are carved on panels in the walls of the colonnade

  Noted events in his life were:

• He was educated at WWI.

Alfred married Living