Directions

Take the Menin road from Ieper and turn right towards Zillebeke. Perth Cemetery is one kilometre along this road on the left.

About the cemetery

This frontline cemetery was started by French troops in 1914 and used until October 1917. It is unknown how the cemetery came to be called Perth, but the China Wall part comes from a nearby trench known as the Great Wall of China. The cemetery was also known to troops as Halfway House Cemetery and originally contained 130 graves. After the Armistice Perth Cemetery was enlarged by the concentration of graves from more than 30 smaller cemeteries. Today 2791 Commonwealth soldiers are buried or commemorated here - the French graves were removed after the war. Special memorials commemorate 24 soldiers known or believed to be buried here; other memorials commemorate 104 casualties who were originally buried in the cemeteries that were concentrated here, but whose graves could not be found.

Total burials: 2791

Australian burials: 134 (19 unidentified)

Notable Australians buried in this cemetery

• Second Lieutenant Frederick Birks VC, MM, 6th Battalion, died 21/09/1917, age 23. Frederick Birks originally served with the 2nd Field Ambulance and was wounded at Gallipoli. He was awarded the Military Medal for bravery during the terrible fighting at Pozieres in July 1916. Early in 1917 he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and transferred to the 6th Battalion, where he led a party of men in the attack on Glencourse Wood on September 20th (during the Battle of Menin Road). During the advance a German strongpoint held up the Australians and Birks, along with Corporal W. Johnston, rushed the position. Johnston was wounded but Birks carried on and single-handedly captured the post. Later he assembled a small team of men and attacked another strongpoint, capturing fifteen men and an officer. When a shellburst buried part of his company he began to dig them out by hand but was killed by another explosion. Grave I. G. 45.