Chittagong War Cemetery, Commonwealth military cemetery in Dampara, Chittagong, Bangladesh
Chittagong War Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in the Dampara area of Chittagong, holding around 730 graves from World War II arranged in straight rows across a flat, open plot. Each grave is marked with a standard white headstone that records the name, rank, and unit of the person buried there.
The British Army created the cemetery after World War II, initially with about 400 graves. It served the 152nd British General Hospital, active from December 1944 to October 1945, and the Fourteenth Army's training camps at Chittagong. After the war, remains were moved here from Lushai Hills, Dacca, Khulna, Jessore, Cox's Bazar, Rangamati, Patiya and other temporary sites, bringing the total to 731 Commonwealth burials.
The graves are grouped by origin: 471 from the United Kingdom, 207 from British India, 25 from Canada, 9 from Australia and 2 from New Zealand. Among the 20 foreign burials are 19 Japanese soldiers and one seaman of the Dutch Navy. A memorial on the site commemorates the Chittagong–Bombay route of the 1939–45 war.
The cemetery is in the Dampara area and easy to reach by road. The grounds are flat and open, so walking through takes little effort, though visiting in the early morning or late afternoon is more comfortable given the heat.
The site was built on former rice paddies, and all the trees and flowering plants growing there today were introduced after the war. This means the green setting that visitors see now is entirely different from what the land looked like when the first soldiers were buried here.
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