Pozières British Cemetery

Cemetery Details

Location Route d'Albert (D929), Pozières, Departement de la Somme - Haute de France, France
Co‑ordinates N50.03371, E2.71551
Description

Location Information
Pozieres is a village some 6 kilometres north-east of Albert, and the Cemetery, which is enclosed by the Pozieres Memorial, is a little south-west of the village on the north side of the main road (D929) from Albert to Pozieres.

History Information
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 following were among the more important burial grounds from which British graves were concentrated to Pozieres British Cemetery:-

  • CASUALTY CORNER CEMETERY, CONTALMAISON, on the road from Pozieres to Fricourt, used in the summer and autumn of 1916, which contained the graves of 21 Canadian soldiers, 21 Australian and 13 from the United Kingdom.
  • DANUBE POST CEMETERY, THIEPVAL (named from a trench and a Dressing Station), between the site of Thiepval village and Mouquet Farm. Here were buried, in the winter of 1916-17, 34 soldiers from the United Kingdom, mainly of the R.F.A.
  • NAB JUNCTION CEMETERY, OVILLERS-LA BOISSELLE, at the crossing of the Thiepval-Pozieres Road and "Nab Valley", in which 60 soldiers from the United Kingdom and one German prisoner were buried in the winter of 1916-17.

There are now 2,760 Commonwealth servicemen buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 1,382 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 23 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. There is also 1 German soldier buried here. 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. The cemetery and memorial were designed by W H Cowlishaw.

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Names

Showing 8 people of interest from cemetery

WALLIS, Thomas James Oakley

Service number 933
Private
46th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born Dec 1890

LOCKYER, George Howard

Service number 223
Private
20th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 25 Dec 1883

MAYNE, Linden Alfred

Service number 3494
Private
52nd Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born Jan 1890

LASHMAR, Clair Young

Service number 1735
Private
52nd Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 28 Mar 1893

CREIGHTON, Percival Reginald Eric

Service number 2520
Private
46th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 1891

GIESLER, George

Service number 470
Corporal
5th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1

EVANS, Joseph Owen

Service number 311
Private
26th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 31 Oct 1888

CONWAY, William John Montague

Service number 2671
Private
12th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born Oct 1888

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