Private John Broderick

Ration Farm Military Cemetery is located about 2.5 kms south of the village of La Chapelle-d'Armentieres, on the south-eastern outskirts of Armentieres. Leave La Chapelle-d'Armentieres on the Fleurbaix road and cross over the Motorway bridge. The Cemetery is 500 metres further along on the right hand side of the road. The farm was, during the greater part of the war, just over 1 kilometre from the British front line, at the end of the communication trench; and rations for the front line troops were brought to it. The first burials were made by the 1st Leinsters in November, 1914, and the first Cemetery (Ration Farm Old Military Cemetery) was begun in February, 1915 and used until October, 1915, chiefly by units of the 6th Division. At the Armistice it contained 73 graves. It was close beside the farm buildings, on the South-East side of the road; and, in April, 1923, the graves were moved, at the request of the French authorities, into Plot VI of the present Cemetery. The present Cemetery was begun (as Ration Farm New Military Cemetery) in October, 1915, and remained in use until October, 1918. It was very greatly increased after the Armistice by the concentration of isolated graves and small graveyards on the battlefields to the East, South and West. Plots I to V contain, for the most part, original burials. Among the isolated graves brought in are many of Australian soldiers who fell in the Attack at Fromelles (19th July, 1916); and among the small graveyards concentrated were Chapel Farm Cemetery, Fleurbaix (1.6 kilometres West of Bois Grenier, containing 11 British graves of 1915 and 1916), and Ferme-du-Biez Military Cemetery, La Chapelle D'Armentieres (1.6 kilometres South East of that village, containing 36 British graves of 1915 and 1918). The cemetery covers an area of 5,016 square metres, and is enclosed by a brick wall.