War memorial Sint-Lievens-Esse

The war memorial at the church in Sint-Lievens-Esse commemorates the military and civilian victims of the First and Second World Wars. It was inaugurated on Easter Monday in 1920.

An important event in the area was the Battle of Wijnhuize or Battle of 't Schipken , a military encounter at the end of the Second World War on 3 September 1944 at the intersection of Het Schipken of the Schipstraat and the Gentweg on the border of Steenhuize-Wijnhuize and Sint-Lievens-Esse (Herzele).

An English tank column came from Oudenaarde via Zottegem along the Langestraat, Gentweg and therefore drove into the Schipstraat at the liberation in Wijnhuize to stop there. The advancing allied column was very nervous, because there had already been contact with the Germans during the encounter at the Luchtbal in Zottegem. After the encounter at the Luchtbal, the retreating Germans had headed for Ghent via Erwetegem, the Assestraat and the Gentweg. They therefore also approached the 't Schipken crossroads, but from the opposite direction as the English. The two parties did not know each other's route. Civilian Alfons Hendrickx ran quickly across the street to be able to see the entry of the English, but an English machine gun misjudged the man's sudden movement and shot him down. The German column that was on its way to Ghent wrongly interpreted the shots as an act of attack and fired a cannon towards 't Schipken. There was shooting back and forth for about 30 minutes. There were several seriously injured and another dead: the 22-year-old English lieutenant David Scott Russell. He was buried in the cemetery of Sint-Lievens-Esse . Another English soldier lost both legs during the shelling. It is unknown how many German victims there were.

The cemetery is therefore one of the Commonwealth war graves.

Willem Vandenameele