The memorial is situated on Australian land, acquired by the division after the war. A narrow grass way bounded by a low rubble wall leads to a long, tall bank known as the ‘Butte’, a pre-1914 firing range. A steep flight of steps lead up the Butte to the memorial itself, a stone obelisk. Beneath the memorial are the 2,103 headstones of Buttes New British Cemetery and the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing while beyond stretches Polygon Wood.

Polygon Wood (the 'Polygone de Zonnebeke', or Polygoneveld) is a large wood incorporating a pre-1914 firing range, south of the village of Zonnebeke. The wood was completely devastated in the First World War, having been cleared by Commonwealth troops at the end of October 1914, given up on 3 May 1915, taken again at the end of September 1917 by Australian troops, evacuated in the Battles of the Lys, and finally retaken by the 9th (Scottish) Division on 28 September 1918.

On 26 September 1917, the 5th Australian Division managed to turn an allied defeat into a major victory by capturing the butte at Polygon Wood. This clean–cut success, at the cost of over 3,000 casualties, suggests the reason the Fifth Division picked the butte for their memorial on the Western Front.

Polygon Wood Cemetery is an irregular front-line cemetery made between August 1917 and April 1918, and used again in September 1918. The cemetery contains 103 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 17 of them unidentified. 60 of those buried here served with the New Zealand forces. There is also one German grave within the cemetery. A walled avenue leads from Polygon Wood Cemetery, past the Cross of Sacrifice, to the Buttes New British Cemetery. This burial ground was made after the Armistice when a large number of graves (almost all of 1917, but in a few instances of 1914, 1916 and 1918) were brought in from the battlefields of Zonnebeke. There are now 2,108 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in Buttes New British Cemetery. 1,677 of the burials are unidentified but special memorials are erected to 35 casualties known or believed to be buried among them.

The New Zealand Memorial, which stands in Buttes New British Cemetery, commemorates 378 officers and men of the New Zealand Division who died in the Polygon Wood sector between September 1917 and May 1918, and who have no known grave. This is one of seven memorials in France and Belgium to those New Zealand soldiers who died on the Western Front and whose graves are not known. The memorials are all in cemeteries chosen as appropriate to the fighting in which the men died.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), based in the United Kingdom, is responsible for the official commemoration of all Commonwealth casualties of the two world wars and the maintenance of those commemorations in perpetuity. In this regard, the Commission constructed official war cemeteries throughout France and Belgium.

Battle Exploit Memorials, such as the 5th Division Memorial, were erected after the war by the various Divisions. Unfortunately a specific date is not available for the construction of these memorials , however, a reference regarding the 5th Division Memorial has been found in the CWGC archive files, from Major Ingpen, in which he states "that whilst travelling back to Ypres at the beginning of October 1919, he was surprised to see the new memorial in place". Although a more precise date is unknown it appears to have been erected/completed in September 1919.

Lange Dreve, Ieper, Belgium.

The Memorial looks over the Buttes New British Cemetery. Buttes New British Cemetery is located 8 kms east of Ieper town centre on the Lange Dreve, a road leading from the Meenseweg (N8) connecting Ieper to Menen. From Ieper town centre the Meenseweg is located via Torhoutstraat and right onto Basculestraat. Basculestraat ends at a main crossroads, directly over which begins the Meenseweg. 4.7 kms along the Meenseweg, after the Bellewaerde theme park, lies the left hand turning onto Oude Kortrijkstraat. 2 kms along the Oude Kortrijkstraat the road crosses the A19 motorway. Immediately after this bridge is the left hand turning onto the Lotegatstraat, which borders Polygon Wood. 800 meters along the Lotegatstraat is the right hand turning onto Lange Dreve. The Cemetery is located 1 km along the Lange Dreve on the right hand side of the road.