Basra War Cemetery (British)

Basra War Cemetery is located near the Shatt-Al-Arab river in the middle of a small, quiet, residential neighbourhood called Al Hakameia. It comprises both an Indian and a British Cemetery, situated across the road from each other with matching gatehouses, the same as was originally at Amara.

Basra War Cemetery began as a small civil burial ground and was greatly enlarged during the First World War. It became one of the principal Commonwealth cemeteries in southern Iraq, reflecting evacuations from the Tigris and Euphrates fronts, base-hospital deaths in Basra, and later interwar/WWII burials including an RAF/civilian plot. With its strategic position on the banks of the Shatt-al-Arab river and the Persian Gulf by the border with Iran, it was the main entry point and logistical base for the Mesopotamia campaign, the allied invasion and occupation of World War Two, and the second gulf war.

The RAF Peace cemetery (72 interwar deaths, forty-six graves are for Royal Air Force personnel, nine graves for men of the Royal Navy, three from the British Army, five from the Indian Army and eight civilians. For a definitive analysis of the RAF cemetery at Basra see Steve Buster Johnsons website). Also included is the main extension for the First World War burials and around 300 Second World War deaths (including my grandfather, an AA gunner tasked with guarding Shaiba RAF base). Altogether, it holds together around 3,190 burials.

The site also once incorporated the Basra (Tanooma Chinese) Memorial commemorating 227 unidentified casualties of the Chinese Labour Corps who were attached to Inland Water Transport during World War I. The original cemetery was lost almost immediately after WW1 with the expansion of the Port. The Tanooma panel like all the other panels is now missing (see below).

Basra was the site of one of the largest offensives in the Iran/Iraq war with the Siege of Basra (Operation Karbala-5) January 8 to mid-April 1987. This followed a previous attempt two years earlier. It was a massive, bloody offensive by Iran to capture the Iraqi city, marking one of the largest battles of the war, ultimately resulting in an Iraqi defensive victory but at the cost of an estimated 80,000 deaths, and included heavy bombardment of Basra city by the Iranian Forces.

Those in the UK will be more familiar with the 2003-2009 invasion and occupation of Basra by the British Army and its Allies. This ramped up from a short initial fight with Iraqi Army troops ending April 2003, followed by a period of relative calm immediately afterwards, before the full counter-insurgency started. This peaked in 2007, when the Allied forces moved from their base in Saddam's former Palace on the Shatt Al Arab river to Shaiba Airbase. The fighting included artillery and air bombardment of the city itself to counter militant rocket attacks, with the Allied forces working closely with the Iraqi Army allies.

2003: British Army removal of memorial panels and gravestones from Basra War Cemetery

During the early phases of the occupation in September 2003 a project to clean up Basra War Cemetery was initiated. This ultimately led to 50 pallets of material including approximately 80 WW1 memorial panels, hundreds of WW2 gravestones (many damaged) and 280 brand new WW2 Indian Army gravestones stored on site and yet to be installed being removed to Basra Palace for "safekeeping". These were later moved to Shaiba and 18 months after their removal were crushed with the resulting rubble being used to infill a drainage ditch at Shaiba Base. The British Army thus destroyed a British Army military cemetery and hid the fact for over 20 years. For more information see The Destruction of Basra War Cemetery by the British Army.

Photographs of the British Army removing panels and gravestones from Basra War Cemetery, the cutting of the perimeter railings, the recovery of scattered headstones and panels, and the storage of the inscribed tablets in the gatehouse before their removal to Basra Palace.

There are a handful of Turkish POW graves, some Russian/Soviet graves (Basra was a key stop in the Persian Corridor supplying the Soviet Union with US supplies during World War Two) and also Polish Second World War burials (Iraq was the route General Anders army took escaping from Soviet invasion on their way to the UK, many losing their lives in Operation Market Garden). Curiously, there are also two Dutch army burials there.

As with Amara, the original Great War individual headstones were removed in the 1930s and replaced with the memorial wall. The British Army cemetery in Basra is about half the size of Amara British Cemetery.

Basra War Cemetery, historical photographs

Historical photographs from the cemetery's earlier decades, when the Cross of Sacrifice still stood at the head of the principal avenue and the Memorial Wall panels were intact, the grounds tended as a garden of trees, hedges and flowering borders. Images © CWGC.

As of 1997 the site was already showing signs of dereliction due to lack of maintenance and care, the significant impact of the Iran/Iraq war and acts of local vandalism, the site having become without any form of security, a nighttime location for illegal drinking, drug taking and crime. However the memorial wall was largely intact, the headstones in place in rows although often on the ground having been kicked over.

1997: Decline and damage

Photographs from 1997 showing the cemetery after decades of conflict and neglect, the gardens reduced to bare ground and broken stonework scattered across the site. Images © CWGC.

The Cross of Sacrifice is now gone and just the pedestal remains. The War Stone was pushed from its pedestal to the side of the cemetery where it lies on its side in a poor condition. The gatehouse is still the primary entrance to the site but used by passing motorists as a urinal.

The local community has been using the site for recreation for many decades, with generations of boys using it to play football. It is the only open area of land in a neighbourhood with no alternative facilities and none likely with the rapid development of Basra making unbuilt land increasingly at a premium.

In 2018, the site had a new fence erected by the CWGC to replace the one that the British Army started to demolish to gain access to the site which was needed for the heavy machinery to move the pallets of panels in 2003.