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.

Read more...

Names

Showing 8 people of interest from cemetery

CHASE, Walter Vernon

Service number 378
Private
50th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 25 Aug 1894

BLENNERHASSETT, Arthur William

Service number 13258
Private
13th Field Ambulance
AIF WW1
Born 1 May 1892

LYNCH, James Patrick

Service number 4599
Private
45th Infantry Battalion (WW1)
AIF WW1
Born 1890

DOOLAN, William Richard

Service number OFFICER
Second Lieutenant
8th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 12 Jan 1890

KEATING, Thomas Patrick

Service number 29
Private
20th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 1890

MCCURRIE, Francis Horace

Service number 2352
Sapper
3rd Field Company Engineers
AIF WW1

TURNER, Henry Hemmingway

Service number 3930
Private
21st Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 19 Jun 1895

MELVILLE, Gordon Alexander

Service number 4177
Private
19th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born Apr 1889

Showing 4 of 6 images.
Click images to start slideshow.