Military History | Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery — The Stones Stand Back to Back

The headstones here are set in pairs. Each stone with an inscription on it has a second stone touching its back, facing the other way, and the two share one bed of soil and one border of flowers; then a strip of mown grass, then the next pair. Commonwealth war cemeteries are normally laid out in single ranks facing one way, each rank with its own border. This plot above Hautot-sur-Mer, inland from Dieppe, is not.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission's page for the cemetery describes the raid of 18–19 August 1942, records that 948 Commonwealth servicemen of the Second World War are buried or commemorated here, 187 of them unidentified, with 7 non-Commonwealth and 2 non-World War burials, and ends: "Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery, designed by Philip Hepworth, was the first new cemetery of the 1939-45 war to be completed in 1949." It says nothing about how the graves are arranged.

The explanation in circulation comes from one department. Veterans Affairs Canada writes: "The hillside cemetery is unique in that its headstones have been placed back-to-back in long double rows. The Germans buried them in the same way they buried their own. After liberation, the Allies chose not to disturb the graves." The same page counts 944 buried and 707 of them Canadian, where the Commission counts 948. No source is given for any of it, the Commission does not repeat it, and no decision to keep the rows appears anywhere on the record.

C. P. Stacey's Canadian official history puts the Canadian military casualties of the raid at 3,367 of all ranks, 1,946 of them prisoners, and the fatal casualties at 56 officers and 851 other ranks; Veterans Affairs Canada now prints 916 dead. The Commission's own summary counts more than 3,600 casualties from a military force of 6,100, and 550 naval.

A Cross of Sacrifice stands at one end of the plot and a small shelter at the other. Beyond the hedge the ground is farmland. The stones facing the path carry the maple leaf; the ones behind them show their blank backs to the grass.

📸 Cover: paired headstones, the inscribed faces toward the path and the blank backs of the next rank touching them, one flower border to each pair. Photograph by Labattblueboy, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. Second view, the whole plot with its Cross of Sacrifice and shelter, by Londonclanger, 29 June 2018, CC BY-SA 4.0.