Pozieres British Cemetery and Memorial, Ovillers-la-Boisselle, Somme, France

On the main road from Pozieres towards Albert, the large Pozieres British Cemetery and Memorial is reached on the right side of the road. The inscription above the gate reads "In memory of the Officers and Men of the Fifth and Fourth Armies who fought on the Somme battlefields 21st March to 7th August 1918 and of those of their dead who have no known graves".

The village of Pozieres was attacked on 23 July 1916 by the 1st Australian and 48th (South Midland) Divisions, and was taken on the following day. It was lost on 24-25 March 1918, during the great German advance, and recaptured by the 17th Division on the following 24 August. Plot II of Pozieres British Cemetery contains the original burials of 1916, 1917 and 1918, carried out by fighting units and field ambulances. The remaining plots were made after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields immediately surrounding the cemetery; the majority of them of soldiers who died in the autumn of 1916, but a few represent the fighting in August 1918. The cemetery is enclosed by the Pozieres Memorial, which relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918.



The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died in France during the Fifth Army area retreat on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918. The Corps and Regiments most largely represented are The Rifle Brigade with over 600 names, The Durham Light Infantry with approximately 600 names, the Machine Gun Corps with over 500, The Manchester Regiment with approximately 500 and The Royal Horse and Royal Field Artillery with over 400 names.

Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery

VILLERS-BRETONNEUX MILITARY CEMETERY was made after the Armistice when graves were brought in from other burial grounds in the area and from the battlefields.




Plots I to XX were completed by 1920 and contain mostly Australian graves, almost all from the period March to August 1918. Plots IIIA, VIA, XIIIA and XVIA, and Rows in other Plots lettered AA, were completed by 1925, and contain a much larger proportion of unidentified graves brought from a wider area. Later still, 444 graves were brought in from Dury Hospital Military Cemetery.

The following were among the burial grounds from which British graves were taken to Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery.

CARD COPSE CEMETERY, MARCELCAVE, on the road to Fouilloy, where 35 Australian soldiers were buried by the 2nd Australian Division in July and August, 1918.

DURY HOSPITAL MILITARY, CEMETERY, under the wall of the Asylum near the West side of the Amiens-Dury road. From August, 1918, to January, 1919, this building was used intermittently by British medical units, and a cemetery was made next to an existing French Military Cemetery. The British cemetery contained the graves of 195 Canadian and 185 United Kingdom soldiers and airmen; 63 Australian soldiers; one man of the Cape Auxiliary Horse Transport Corps; and one French and one American soldier.

HIGH CEMETERY, SAILLY-LE-SEC, on the road to Ville-sur-Ancre, where 18 United Kingdom and eleven Australian soldiers were buried in June-August, 1918.

KANGAROO CEMETERY, SAILLY-LE-SEC (on the Ville-sur-Ancre road, but nearer Sailly), where 13 Australian soldiers were buried by the 41st Battalion in March-April, 1918, and 14 of the 58th (London) Division by their comrades in August, 1918.

LAMOTTE-EN-SANTERRE COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION. The village was captured by Australian troops on the 8th August, 1918, and the Extension contained the graves of 56 Australian and twelve United Kingdom soldiers who fell in August and September.

LA NEUVILLE-LES-BRAY COMMUNAL CEMETERY, containing the grave of one Australian soldier who fell in August, 1918.

LE HAMELET BRITISH CEMETERY (behind the Church), containing the graves of 25 Australian soldiers who fell in April-July, 1918; and the COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, in which 27 Australian soldiers and one from the United Kingdom were buried in July and August, 1916.

MIDWAY CEMETERY, MARCELCAVE, 1,500 yards North-West of Marcelcave Church, made by the Canadian Corps and containing the graves of 53 Canadian and three United Kingdom soldiers who fell in August, 1918.

VAUX-SUR-SOMME COMMUNAL CEMETERY, containing three Australian graves of March-April, 1918, and two United Kingdom of 1916 and 1917; and the EXTENSION, made in May-August, 1918, and containing the graves of 130 Australian soldiers and 104 soldiers (mainly 58th Division and Artillery) and one airman from the United Kingdom.

WARFUSEE-ABANCOURT COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, in which five Australian soldiers were buried by the 12th Australian Field Ambulance in August, 1918. There are now 2,142 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 609 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to five casualties known or believed to be buried among them, and to 15 buried in other cemeteries whose graves could not be found on concentration. The cemetery also contains the graves of two New Zealand airmen of the Second World War.

Villers-Bretonneux became famous in 1918, when the German advance on Amiens ended in the capture of the village by their tanks and infantry on 23 April. On the following day, the 4th and 5th Australian Divisions, with units of the 8th and 18th Divisions, recaptured the whole of the village and on 8 August 1918, the 2nd and 5th Australian Divisions advanced from its eastern outskirts in the Battle of Amiens.

Both cemetery and memorial were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

The Unnamed III- Pictures from Thiepval Cemetery, Somme.

Here are some more striking photographs taken by my friend Roger Stoakley.

These were taken at the Thiepval cemetery in the shadow of the memorial to the missing.

Roger can be contacted at: rjstoakley@btopenworld.com

Wimereux Communal Cemetery, France.

Wimereux is a small town situated about 5 kilometers north of Boulogne.
Wimereux was the headquarters of the Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps during the First World War and in 1919 it became the General Headquarters of the British Army. From October 1914 onwards, Boulogne and Wimereux formed an important hospital centre and until June 1918, the medical units at Wimereux used the communal cemetery for burials, the south-eastern half having been set aside for Commonwealth graves, although a few burial were also made among the civilian graves.




By June 1918, this half of the cemetery was filled, and subsequent burials from the hospitals at Wimereux were made in the new military cemetery at Terlincthun.

Wimereux Communal Cemetery contains 2,847, Commonwealth burials of the First World War, two of them unidentified.

The Commonwealth section was designed by Charles Holden. Because of the sandy nature of the soil, the headstones lie flat upon the graves . Buried among them is Lt.-Col. John McCrae, author of the poem "In Flanders Fields." There are also five French and a plot of 170 German war graves. The cemetery also contains 14 Second World War burials, six of them unidentified.

Etaples Cemetery, France.

Etaples cemetery contains 10,773 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, the earliest dating from May 1915. 35 of these burials are unidentified.

After the war, a number of graves were brought into the cemetery from other French burial grounds. Of the 119 Second World War burials, 38 are unidentified. Etaples Military Cemetery also contains 658 German burials and a few war graves of other nationalities.

Etaples is a town about 27 kilometres south of Boulogne. The Military Cemetery is to the north of the town, on the west side of the road to Boulogne.

During the First World War, the area around Etaples was the scene of immense concentrations of Commonwealth reinforcement camps and hospitals. It was remote from attack, except from aircraft, and accessible by railway from both the northern or the southern battlefields.

In 1917, 100,000 troops were camped among the sand dunes and the hospitals, which included eleven general, one stationary, four Red Cross hospitals and a convalescent depot, could deal with 22,000 wounded or sick.

In September 1919, ten months after the Armistice, three hospitals and the Q.M.A.A.C. convalescent depot remained.

Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Étaples Military Cemetery is the largest CWGC cemetery in France, and contains the remains of soldiers from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and Germany. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has only published the number of Commonwealth and German dead buried in Étaples, although its records for the cemetery note that it contains 'a few war graves of other nationalities'.

"In Etaples the hilltops which mark out the horizon to the south have a magnificent and calm nature. A few clouds slowly came to rest there. It was a grand and wonderful sight."

Victor Hugo

Ocklynge Cemetery, Eastbourne, East Sussex.

Ocklynge Cemetery is located in Old Town, Eastbourne, East Sussex.

The Cross of Sacrifice designed by Reginald Bloomfield for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission stands at the main entrance to Ocklynge Cemetery. 130 casualties of the Great War lie randomly within the walls of the great cemetery.



In Ocklynge there are buried 18 officers and 112 other ranks. The Army has 107 burials, the Royal Navy 9 and the Royal Flying Corps 14.

42 of the burials in the cemetery have local connections and 17 of the men are soldiers who succumbed to wounds at the Central Military Hospital in Old Town. In fact, between January 1916 and July 1919 there were 16,000 admissions to the hospital, only 100 of these admissions succumbed to wounds or sickness.

The nationalities buried at Ocklynge:
South Africans 2
Canadians 8
Australians 6
New Zealander 1
Brazilian 1

The first military funeral at Ocklynge took place in October 1914. Private Edward William Langford of the 1st Battalion Befordshire Regiment he was 23. He enlisted in 1907 and was called up as a reservist in 1914. During the retreat from Mons he was wounded by sniper fire whilst resting in an orchard. His brother who was in the same battalion and a bandsman/stretcher bearer picked him up. Although he made it back to the Royal Herbert Hospital, Woolwich he subsequently died. The family home was in Wellesley Road, near the town centre.
His brother was killed the following year at Ypres.

Remembrance Day - 'In Flanders Fields.'

For Remembrance Day 2007, 'In Flanders Fields' by John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae's grave in Wimereux Cemetery, France.


John McCrae was born in Guelph, Ontario and attended the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute. He then studied medicine on a scholarship at the University of Toronto. While attending the university he joined the Zeta Psi Fraternity (Theta Xi chapter; class of 1894) and published his first poems. He was a member of The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada while studying at the University of Toronto, during which time he was promoted to Captain.

McCrae served in the artillery during the Second Boer War, and upon his return was appointed professor of pathology at the University of Vermont, where he taught until 1911 (although he also taught at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec). In 1910, he accompanied Lord Grey, the Governor General of Canada, on a canoe trip to Hudson Bay.

At the start of the war McCrae was appointed as a field surgeon in the Canadian artillery and was in charge of a field hospital during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. The poem ‘In Flanders fields’ was written upon a scrap of paper upon the back of Colonel Cosgrave, in the trenches during a lull in the bombings. On May 3, 1915, after he witnessed the death of his friend, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, the day before (as recited to his grandson). The poem was first published on December 8, that year in Punch magazine, London


From June 1, 1915 McCrae was ordered away from the artillery to set up No. 3 Canadian General Hospital at Dannes-Camiers near Boulogne-sur-Mer, northern France. C.L.C. Allinson reported that McCrae "most unmilitarily told [me] what he thought of being transferred to the medicals and being pulled away from his beloved guns. His last words to me were: 'Allinson, all the goddam doctors in the world will not win this bloody war: what we need is more and more fighting men.'"

'In Flanders Fields' appeared anonymously in Punch on 8 December 1915, but in the index to that year McCrae was named as the author. The verses swiftly became one of the most popular poems of the war, used in countless fund-raising campaigns and frequently translated (a Latin version begins In agro belgico...). 'In Flanders Fields' was also extensively printed in the USA, which was contemplating joining the war, alongside a 'reply' by R. W. Lillard, ("...Fear not that you have died for naught, The torch ye threw to us we caught...").

In late January 1918, while still commanding No 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill) at Boulogne, McCrae died of pneumonia. He died on January 28, 1918, and was buried with full honours in Wimereux Cemetery, just a couple of kilometres up the coast from Boulogne. McCrae's horse, "Bonfire", led the procession, his master's riding boots reversed in the stirrups. McCrae's gravestone is placed flat, as are all the others, because of the sandy soil.

Hunter’s Cemetery, Beaumont-Hamel, France.

Hunter’s Cemetery, Beaumont-Hamel, France.

Beaumont-Hamel was attacked in vain on the 1st July, 1916, and captured by the 51st (Highland) and 63rd (Royal Naval) Divisions on the following 13th November. Hunter's Cemetery (the origin of the name is not known) is, in fact, a great shell-hole, in which soldiers of the 51st Division, who fell in the capture of Beaumont-Hamel, were buried after the battle. There are now over 46, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site.

The cemetery itself is also circular, whilst all the known casualties (41) buried here except one died on the 13th of November, and all except two are men of the Black Watch (6th and 7th battalions) or Gordon Highlanders.

Mont Huon Military Cemetry, Le Treport, France.

When the original military cemetery at Le Treport filled, it became necessary to use the new site at Mont Huon.

There are now 2,128 Commonwealth burials of the First World War in the cemetery and seven from the Second World War. The cemetery also contains more than 200 German war graves.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.

Le Treport Military Cemetery, France

Le Treport is a coastal town approximately 30 kilometres north-east of Dieppe. The Military Cemetery lies to the south of the town next to the town's Communal Cemetery on the D940.

During the First World War, Le Treport was an important hospital centre. No 3 General Hospital was established there in November 1914, No 16 General Hospital in February 1915, No 2 Canadian General Hospital in March 1915, No 3 Convalescent Depot in June 1915 and Lady Murray's BRCS Hospital in July 1916. These hospitals contained nearly 10,000 beds. No 47 General Hospital arrived in March 1917 and later that year, a divisional rest camp and a tank training depot were established in the neighbourhood.
By March 1919, the hospitals had been closed and Le Treport became the headquarters of the 68th Division, which re-formed there before going to the Rhine. The divisional supply depot was closed in June 1919.

There are now 445 Commonwealth burials of the First World War in the cemetery. Three of the four Second World War burials are unidentified. The cemetery, one of the first three Commission cemeteries to be built after the First World war, was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.

The Unnamed II- Additional Pictures from the Somme

In a previous post 'The Unnamed' i published some photographes taken by my friend Roger Stoakley.

Here are a few more taken on the Somme battlefield (click on the photo for a larger image).

Roger can be contacted at: rjstoakley@btopenworld.com

Messines Ridge Military Cemetery

Messines Ridge Military Cemetery is located on the road leading west from Messines towards Wulvergehem, on the ridge which dominates the lower lying land below. Before the battle of Messines, in early 1917 this spot was approximately where the German lines ran, and the cemetery does not in fact date from the War itself, but was created after the Armistice.

The cemetery also contains a memorial to the officers and men of New Zealand who fell in or near Messines in 1917 and 1918. Looking west from the cemetery, the spire of Wulvergehem church can be seen. The picture above shows the entrance to the cemetery; the New Zealand memorial is surmounted by the Cross of Sacrifice and is in the form of panels around the circular base on which the cross is set. These panels are arranged by regiment, including panels for Maori, Auckland, Canterbury and Wellington Regiments. This is one of several such memorials to those from New Zealand with no known grave; after the war, the New Zealanders decided not to have the names of their soldiers whose bodies had never been recovered or identified commemorated on the Menin Gate. Instead, there are seven New Zealand memorials to the missing in France and Belgium, and these have been placed in cemeteries which were appropriate to the fighting in which those listed on each died (such as here at Messines).

The memorial commemorates more than 800 New Zealand soldiers, and the Cemetery beyond has over 1500 graves, approximately two thirds of which are unidentified, reflecting this cemeteries nature - it was created by recovery of many bodies from the Messines battlefields after the war.

There are also special memorials to soldiers buried elsewhere but whose graves were later destroyed by shell-fire. On the left hand side of the Cemetery stands a large impressive pavilion like building, and looking from this the domination of the position is clear. Looking south, the spires of Armentieres are visible. In fact, Messines is nearer to Armentieres than to Ypres.

The Unnamed - Pictures from the Somme

A friend of mine, Roger Stoakley has just returned from visiting the Somme battlefields in France. He took some excellent, sweeping photographs of some of the cemetries.

His pictures really capture the sense of loss and they powerfully portray the feeling of vastness of the sacrifice. They are a sweeping statement to a lost generation.

Roger can be contacted at: rjstoakley@btopenworld.com

Additional Photo's on 'The Unnamed II'