Reginald Blomfield 's Menin Gate was the first memorial to the missing located in Europe to be completed , and was unveiled on 24 July 1927 . The Menin Gate ( Menenpoort ) was found to have insufficient space to contain all the names as originally planned and 34 @,@ 984 names of the missing were instead inscribed on Herbert Baker 's Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing . Other memorials followed : the Helles Memorial in Gallipoli designed by John James Burnet ; the Thiepval Memorial on the Somme and the Arras Memorial designed by Edwin Lutyens ; and the Basra Memorial in Iraq designed by Edward Prioleau Warren . The Dominions and India also erected memorials on which they commemorated their missing : the Neuve @-@ Chapelle Memorial for the forces of India , the Vimy Memorial by Canada , the Villers @-@ Bretonneux Memorial by Australia , the Delville Wood Memorial by South Africa and the Beaumont @-@ Hamel Memorial by Newfoundland . The programme of commemorating the dead of the Great War was considered essentially complete with the inauguration of the Thiepval Memorial in 1932 , though the Vimy Memorial would not be finished until 1936 , the Villers @-@ Bretonneux Memorial until 1938 and stonemasons were still conducting work on the Menin Gate when Germany invaded Belgium in 1940 .