About 2,000 headstones will be replaced, while another 7,000 stones will be re-engraved at a sprawling Belgian cemetery to prepare for upcoming WWI commemorations - Jonas Portillo

The Tyne Cot cemetery sweeps gently down the slope, the nearly 12,000 headstones aligned in solemn rows of gleaming white. Beyond the walls stretch Flanders Fields, dotted by red farmhouse roofs. For the stage of some of World War I's worst carnage, the scene is tranquility itself — but over the whisper of wind floats a whine like a dentist's drill. A closer look gives the reason for the jarring sound. Some gravestones are chipped or cracked. A century of wind and weather has worn the surfaces so the names are hard to read. The stones are no longer perfectly aligned. So workers are using diamond drill bits to painstakingly re-engrave stones and make the names more legible, the regimental shields more distinct. It's part of a grand effort to get the cemeteries of the British Commonwealth — and Tyne Cot is the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world — into perfect condition for the crowds expected to visit during World War I centenary commemorations that will take place between 2014 and 2018. Nearly 100 years ago, these fields were steeped in blood and mud. Burnt trees stood like spent matches against the sky. Horses mired in muck to their haunches strained to haul wagons or guns. Men and boys in trenches watched their feet rot and their friends die. The current works are being carried out to provide the most fitting memorial possible to such suffering, with pristine order serving as a counterpoint to the incomprehensible horror and chaos of the battlefield. About 2,000 headstones will be replaced with new ones, identical to the originals. Those to be replaced are marked in the corner with a small red X. Another 7,000 stones will be re-engraved. The rows of stones will be realigned into geometric perfection, the landscaping trimmed and renewed.