Madras War Cemetery, Commonwealth war cemetery in Nandambakkam, Chennai, India

Madras War Cemetery is a Commonwealth war cemetery in Nandambakkam, Chennai, India. It holds rows of uniform pale stone markers on a flat lawn, with a tall white cross at the far end and a low stone wall behind.

The cemetery was established in 1952 by the Imperial War Graves Commission, now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, to gather Second World War graves from across south and east India. At the rear, a memorial commemorates over 1,000 servicemen from the First World War whose remains lie in cemeteries that could not be maintained.

The cemetery is a place where families and officials gather for remembrance ceremonies, and the rows of markers show the shared loss of many nations. Visitors often pause at the memorial plaques at the rear, where the names of the missing are listed together.

The site sits on Mount-Poonamallee Road, close to St. Thomas Mount and the airport, and is open to the public. Visitors can walk freely along the marked paths between the graves, and the flat ground makes it easy to move around.

The memorial at the back does not contain any bodies; it bears plaques with names of soldiers whose graves are scattered across India. Among those remembered are 14 Australians and 5 New Zealanders, a detail that surprises many visitors.