Grevillers British Cemetery

Cemetery Details

Location Rue du General Frere, Grevillers, Pas-de-Calais - Hauts-de-France, France
Co‑ordinates N50.10774, E2.82009
Description

Location Information
Grevillers is a village in the Department of the Pas de Calais, 3 kilometres west of Bapaume. From Bapaume take the RD929 in the direction of Amiens, turn immediately right onto the RD7, where a signpost indicates the cemetery. After 500 metres turn left at junction onto RD29, where a signpost indicates the cemetery which is on the right after a further 50 metres.

History Information
The village of Grevillers was occupied by Commonwealth troops on 14 March 1917 and in April and May, the 3rd, 29th and 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing Stations were posted nearby. They began the cemetery and continued to use it until March 1918, when Grevillers was lost to the German during their great advance. On the following 24 August, the New Zealand Division recaptured Grevillers and in September, the 34th, 49th and 56th Casualty Clearing Stations came to the village and used the cemetery again. After the Armistice, 200 graves were brought in from the battlefields to the south of the village, 40 from an adjoining cemetery made during the German occupation, and some from the following:-

  • AVESNES-LES-BAPAUME GERMAN CEMETERY, "near the British huts", which contained the graves of two soldiers from the United Kingdom who died in April 1918.
  • BAYONET TRENCH CEMETERY, GUEUDECOURT, which contained the graves of 19 soldiers of the 1st Australian Infantry Battalion who fell on 5 November 1916. There are now 2,106 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in
  • GREVILLERS BRITISH CEMETERY. 189 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 18 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of two casualties, buried in Avesnes-les-Bapaume German Cemetery, whose graves could not be found. The cemetery also contains the graves of seven Second World War airmen, and 18 French war graves.

Within the cemetery stands the GREVILLERS (NEW ZEALAND) MEMORIAL which commemorates almost 450 officers and men of the New Zealand Division who died in the defensive fighting in the area from March to August 1918, and in the Advance to Victory between 8 August and 11 November 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 cemetery and memorial were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

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Names

Showing 8 people of interest from cemetery

JACKSON, Walter Bentley

Service number 1953
Second Lieutenant
28th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 26 Mar 1893

ELLIS, Henry

Service number 1365
Lieutenant
17th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 1886

HADFIELD, Joseph

Service number 817
Sergeant
27th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 1887

DARDEL, Aurel Louis

Service number 20
Lieutenant
12th Field Artillery Brigade
AIF WW1
Born 30 Jul 1893

SPARROW, Sydney Hubert

Service number 994
Second Lieutenant
5th Light Trench Mortar Battery
AIF WW1

ALLEN, Samuel Leslie

Service number 2124
Private
55th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1

GRIGG, Arthur James

Service number 1690
Private
58th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 1893

THOMAS, William Joseph

Service number 163
Lance Corporal
9th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 26 Dec 1882

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