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Phoenix Memorial

  • Country Mauritius
  • Total identified casualties 57 Find these casualties
  • Identified casualties from First & Second World War
  • GPS Coordinates Latitude: -20.28868, Longitude: 57.49019
PHOENIX MEMORIAL - CWGC
PHOENIX MEMORIAL - CWGC
PHOENIX MEMORIAL - CWGC

Location information

The Phoenix Memorial is located in Phoenix Cemetery, a large civil cemetery near the town of Vacaos, which is about midway between the airport and the capital city of Port Louis. The cemetery is in Closel Road, also known locally as Cemetery Road. The memorial stands on the central pathway, twenty metres in from the main entrance.

Visiting information

Phoenix Cemetery, in which the Phoenix Memorial stands, is open from 06:00-18:00 every day.

History information

The Phoenix Memorial commemorates those whose graves are still in one of the following cemeteries, which the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has been unable to maintain :-

Beau Bassin (St. Martin's) Cemetery

Curepipe (Bigara) Cemetery

Flat Island Quarantine Station Cemetery

Mahebourg (Notre Dame) Cemetery

Pamplemousses Cemetery

Quatre Bornes (St. Jean) Cemetery

St. Julien Cemetery, Flacq.

St. Pierre Catholic Cemetery.

Included on the memorial are the names of nine casualties who are buried in Diego Garcia (Pointe Marianne) Cemetery in the British Indian Ocean Territory, though their graves have been subsequently reinstated. Their names will be removed when the memorial panels are next replaced.

The Memorial commemorates 10 Commonwealth casualties of the 1914-1918 war and 47 of the 1939-1945 war.

The names are engraved on slate panels set in twin angled rubble walls built around an octagonal stone seat. Radiating from the seat is a cross Patee in pebble mosaic worked into the paved area within the enclosure. On one of the walls is a dedicatory panel with the inscription :

1939 - 1945

THESE MEMBERS OF HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES ARE BURIED ELSEWHERE IN MAURITIUS AND IN DIEGO GARCIA AND ARE HONOURED HERE AMONG THEIR COMRADES IN ARMS WHO REST IN PHOENIX CEMETERY

THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT BE BLOTTED OUT

The Memorial also has three panels bearing the names of casualties of the 1914-1918 War buried in 5 different sites in Mauritius whose graves could not be adequately maintained.