Medjez-El-Bab Memorial
- Country Tunisia
- Total identified casualties 1956 Find these casualties
- Identified casualties from Second World War
- GPS Coordinates Latitude: 36.62691, Longitude: 9.57061
Location information
Medjez-el-Bab is approximately 60 kilometres west of Tunis. Medjez-el-Bab War Cemetery, in which the Memorial stands, is situated 5 kilometres west of Medjez-el-Bab on the road to Le Kef (Route GP5). GPS Co-ordinates: Latitude: 36.626687, Longitude: 9.570444
Visiting information
The Medjez-El-Bab Memorial is situated inside Medjez-El-Bab War Cemetery.
ARRIVAL
All routes to the cemetery are signposted.
PARKING
It is possible to park in a long gravel lay by in front of the main entrance to the cemetery. The parking is off the main road.
ACCESS, LAYOUT AND MAIN ENTRANCE
The cemetery is rectangular shaped. There stone shelter buildings on either side of the main entrance. Two stone steps lead up from the main road into the cemetery though a double metal gate, approximately 1.5 metres wide.
Directly opposite the entrance is the Stone of Remembrance.
All the routes and paths inside the cemetery are grass, flat and level.
At the furthest point from the main entrance is the Cross of Sacrifice. The Medjez-El-Bab Memorial is located on either side of the Cross, comprised of pergolas stone columns and engraved panels.
There are stone steps in a number of locations leading up to the memorial area, which is grass surrounding the Cross and paving inside the memorial areas.
There are seating areas with stone benches inside the pergola structures of the memorial and stone benches inside the shelters at the main entrance. There are two stone benches on the left and right sides of the cemetery near the front of the cemetery.
The Register Box is in the left-hand shelter at the main entrance. The Cemetery Register and visitor books can only be viewed during the gardener’s working hours; please see Additional Information.
ALTERNATIVE ACCESS
There are no other entrances to the cemetery.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The cemetery is not locked and therefore permanently open.
Gardeners working hours are as follows:
SUMMER
July and August Mon to Thu 0700 to 1200 1300 to 1700
Fri 0630 to 1330
WINTER
September to June Mon to Thu 0700 to 1200 1300 to 1700
Fri 0700 to 1200 1300 to 1600
RAMADAN
Mon to Fri 0700 to 1400
History information
In May 1943, the war in North Africa came to an end in Tunisia with the defeat of the Axis powers by a combined Allied force.
The campaign began on 8 November 1942, when Commonwealth and American troops made a series of landings in Algeria and Morocco. The Germans responded immediately by sending a force from Sicily to northern Tunisia, which checked the Allied advance east in early December. In the south, the Axis forces defeated at El Alamein withdrew into Tunisia along the coast through Libya, pursued by the Allied Eighth Army. By mid April 1943, the combined Axis force was hemmed into a small corner of north-eastern Tunisia and the Allies were grouped for their final offensive.
Medjez-el-Bab was at the limit of the Allied advance in December 1942 and remained on the front line until the decisive Allied advances of April and May 1943.
The MEDJEZ-EL-BAB MEMORIAL commemorates almost 2,000 men of the First Army who died during the operations in Algeria and Tunisia between 8 November 1942 and 19 February 1943, and those of the First and Eighth Armies who died in operations in the same areas between 20 February 1943 and 13 May 1943, and who have no known graves.
The memorial stands within MEDJEZ-EL-BAB WAR CEMETERY where 2,903 Commonwealth servicemen of the Second World War are buried or commemorated. 385 of the burials are unidentified. Special memorials commemorate three soldiers buried in Tunis (Borgel) Cemetery and one in Youks-les-Bains Cemetery, whose graves are now lost.
The five First World War burials in Medjez-el-Bab War Cemetery were brought in from Tunis (Belvedere) Cemetery or in Carthage (Basilica Karita) Cemetery in 1950.
The MEMORIAL and CEMETERY were designed by Sir J. Hubert Worthington.