War cemetery, Kirkee

Khadki was the site of the Battle of Khadki, fought between the British East India Company and the Marathas in 1817 in which Baji Rao, the Peshwa ruler was defeated. Soon after the war, the British set up a cantonment here. It then became the base of the Royal Regiment of Artillery's 79 (Khadki) Commando Battery. World War I Field Marshal William Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood was born in Khadki.

The well known Indian hockey player and former India captain, Dhanraj Pillai grew up here.
Besides, many hockey players[who?] who represented India were from Khadki. The well known Hindi
film actor K K Menon is also known to have attended school here.
Khadki is a city neighbourhood and a cantonment near Pune. It is an army base having two ordnance
factories and several breweries.Referred as Kirkee during British Raj, its borders are flanked by two other large army establishments - the College of Military Engineering and the Bombay Engineering Group. It also has a war cemetery (Kirkee War Cemetery) and a war memorial. It has a large market—Khadki Bazaar—and a railway station.Khadki was also known as a bastion of hockey. The local Field Hockey and Association Football matchesare held on the CAFVD Sports Stadium in front of the Khadki Railway Station The Khadki (Kirkee) Cantonment is housed here. It is known to be as one of the richest cantonments in the country.

This area is also known for the Kirkee War Cemetery and two special memorials erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The war cemetery holds the graves of 1,668 Commonwealth service personnel from World War II besides 629 from World War I who were reburied here from Bombay Sewri Christian Cemetery in 1962. The graves from Sewri are unmarked
and their names listed on the Kirkee (1914–18) Memorial. The Kirkee (1914-1918) Memorial is dedicated 735 Commonwealth service personnel who died in India in World War I and
whose graves in various locations where their graves could not be maintained, to the 629 whose remains were reburied within this cemetery in 1962 from Sewri Christian Cemetery, and to about 193 soldiers of East and West African origin who died during the period of 1939-1945 in various non-operational zones around the country.There is also the Kirkee (1939-1945) Memorial to 197 Commonwealth service personnel (excepting East and West African) who died in World War II
and whose graves in other parts of India and in Pakistan are unmaintainable.

Khadki also has two major Ordnance Factories - Ammunition Factory Khadki and High Explosives Factory.