French Flanders: Richebourg Part Three – St. Vaast Post Military Cemetery

The twin entrances to St. Vaast Post Military Cemetery.  This is the third and final part of a short tour of Richebourg in French Flanders, the previous two posts of which can be found here.

The British attacks in French Flanders, in support of the French offensive further south on the Vimy Ridge and the Douai plain (the Second Battle of Artois), which had started at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 and continued at Aubers on 9th May, would see a ten day battle – the Battle of Festubert – begin on 15th May 1915, as the British attempted to pinch out a German salient that began to the south of Neuve Chapelle and ended just north of the village of Festubert, three miles almost due south of here.

The British would attack along a three mile front after a sixty hour bombardment and for the first time, they would attack at night.  And not for the first time, nor the last, their attacks would fail; in the ensuing ten days before the battle was called off, the British, Canadians & Indians would suffer well over 16,000 casualties for an advance of well under a mile.

It was in the days leading up to the battle that the British began burying their dead in the fields to the north east of Richebourg St. Vaast, in what was, at the time, an orchard near an advanced dressing station (see map on left, the cemetery marked in blue at the top, Festubert ringed in mauve, the German front line in red).  The CWGC website tells us that the A.D.S. was ‘located at the terminus of a trench tramway between the hamlet of Richebourg St. Vaast and La Croix Barbet’, and a look at a map of the area from June 1918, on the right (the old No Man’s Land marked in green), when this was all German territory, confirms this, the tramway clear to see crossing the map,…

…and the top right quarter of this aerial shot, the cemetery once again marked in blue.  The pink dot on the both map and aerial photograph, right next to the tramway as it crosses Forresters Lane,…

…is marked again here, because before we start, here’s a couple of those panorama photographs (click to enlarge) to remind you of what the countryside looked like around here in 1915, the first (below) showing the area marked on the above map.

A closer look at the left-hand side reveals wagons from a wrecked train, with more on the far right,…

…and you can decide for yourselves whether this shot, clearly taken, although from a different angle, from the same rooftop position, shows the same wagons or not.

The second panorama, taken from the same place, looks further south,…

…the dark diagonal shadow on the far left an extension of the roof on the far right of the first panorama.  The official description for both panoramas includes the following details: ‘Field of View: Richebourg L’Avoue front. Direction of View: East South East to South East, Camera Location: House rooves on Forresters Road.’

Inside the cemetery entrance…

…the ‘In perpetuity’ tablet,…

…and a panoramic view on entry.  By the end of the war, almost nine hundred men had been buried in the cemetery, and it may look relatively structured from here, and in a way it is, but this place becomes more complex as we head towards the far end, where we will also find the earliest burials to be made here.  This view shows, in the right foreground, a few scattered graves in Plot V, actually among the final burials to be made here in 1918, as are the first two rows in the centre, and on the left, Plot II, or at least part of it.  Plot II stretches for twenty six rows two-thirds of the way down the cemetery, and I say part of it because the grass corridor on the left actually splits Plot II, which continues to its right, and……well, look, here’s the cemetery plan, and you can see what I am on about for yourselves.

Of course the headstones, as so often, face the other way, although that does at least allow us to see that the row closest to us is on the left here is Plot II Row Z1, which may well be a unique row number, for all I know.  The men buried in the row are all Worcester Regiment men who died on 10th October 1916, those in the next two rows (Rows Z & Y) all casualties from September 1916.

The burials in the plot are roughly chronological, and so, as we make our way to the far end of the cemetery, down the grass corridor separating the two parts of Plot II, we shall be heading back through time as far as the late spring of 1915.

Looking back towards the cemetery entrance, Row U (all March 1916 casualties) in the foreground.  The second row from the front, Row V, is the first (or final) row in the plot that starts across the grass corridor, with the final six headstones in the row seen here,…

…and the first six headstones seen in the second row here (Row U still in the foreground), back-to-back with the first row of Plot V, where we will find ourselves at the very end of this post.

View looking across the cemetery, Row T on the right and Row S on the left,…

…and a little further down Plot II burials from three different Welsh regiments in Row P (closest to the camera, both shots) all casualties from mid-February 1916.

As are these South Wales Borderers in Row O,…

…with another on the far right here in Row N; the three other burials, a Royal Welch Fusilier flanked by two men of the Welch Regiment, are from January 1916.

These Welch Regiment casualties from late January 1916 in Row N,…

…can be seen four rows back in this shot, the graves in the foreground in Row K from earlier in the month,…

…before we find ourselves back in 1915 with these December 1915 casualties in Row H.

Sherwood Foresters in Row E including, on the left, Serjeant A. C. Sheppard D.C.M., killed on 22nd November 1915 aged 26.  Whilst a lance-serjeant, Sheppard had been awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal ‘For conspicuous bravery on 30th July 1915, at Ypres when, on his own initiative, he led a bombing party, under a heavy bomb and rifle fire, against the attacking enemy. Having thrown all his grenades, he went back and brought up a fresh supply, and later, having lost five men, he brought up a replacement.’

The second half of Row E, these men casualties from November 1915,…

…as are most of the burials in Row D, crossing this picture, the headstone in Row C in the foreground that of a London Regiment private killed in October 1915,…

…and those in Row B are from various months in the summer of 1915, and include, on the right, another man with a Distinguished Conduct Medal, Serjeant T. Eustace D.C.M., Bedfordshire Regiment, whose citation reads, ‘For conspicuous gallantry on the 16th May 1915, at Festubert, when, in company with another man, he went out continuously under a heavy shell fire, and brought in twenty wounded officers and men.’  Eustace would be killed on 31st July 1915.

In the front row of Plot II, second from the left, flanked by two privates,…

…is the grave of Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Emerson Bousfield, 123rd Outram’s Rifles, attd. 1st K.G.O. Gurkha Rifles (The Malaun Regiment), who was killed on 25th September 1915 aged 44.  Shot through the lung by a stray bullet, he died within fifteen minutes.  He had first gained a commission in the South Wales Borderers before joining the Indian Staff Corps in 1892.

All of which brings us to the end of our look at Plot II, these Scottish & Irish graves in Row A all from October 1915.  Incidentally, those of you who read the post about Neuve Chapelle Farm Cemetery might like to know that the stabbing victim, Lance Corporal A. Williams of the Manchester Regiment, is buried here, the penultimate headstone from the right in Row C, his headstone visible through the gaps in the first two rows.  We are now two-thirds of the way up the cemetery, and if we turn around to continue our journey,…

…the remainder of this side of the cemetery consists of the nine rows of Plot I beyond this single German grave, that of Vizefeldwebel Bruno Nitschke, who died on 10th April 1918.  Although this is not actually a single German grave at all, because if we turn slightly to our right,…

…we can see that it is but the first of many, this long row almost crossing the whole cemetery, as we’ll see later.  There are a total of ninety German graves in seven rows in different sections of the cemetery, almost all made by the Germans while they were occupying this area in the spring and summer of 1918.  For the moment, however, we shall continue up this side of the cemetery,…

…this view looking back at the first four rows of Plot I with Row D in the foreground, the single German grave we have just seen behind, obscuring the lower half of the tree trunk.  The nine rows in Plot I each contain ten burials, split, like those we have already seen in Plot II, by the grass corridor in the middle.  The men buried in these first four rows are nearly all May 1915 casualties, many killed at the Battle of Festubert.

View looking across the cemetery, Plot I Row D now on the right, Row E on the left, the first five graves of each row on either side of the tree.

At the start of Plot I Row G we find the grave of Private Ernest Alfred Beaumont, 2nd Bn. Leicestershire Regiment, who was executed for desertion on 24th June 1915 aged 27.  He had been in France since October 1914, but he deserted from a reinforcement draft in the port of Le Havre on 14th March 1915, and was subsequently arrested in Rouen on 4th May.

The final row in Plot I is Row J, these men all killed in July 1915, and if you’ve made it this far, well done, and as a treat for so doing (it all gets more interesting later), we’ll take a brief break and I’ll show you another panorama,…

…these series of photos taken from somewhere amidst the ruins of Richebourg l’Avoue, the green dot on the below map,…

…looking towards a small salient in the German front line, shaded in blue, known as the Boar’s Head, and we shall return to what happened at the Boar’s Head, on the very eve of the Battle of the Somme, later in the post.  The pink dot shows the position on Forresters Lane from where the first panoramas were taken.

Back in the cemetery, this view looks south from the cemetery’s northern corner, the two sections of Plot I Row J still in the foreground,…

…and this coloured cemetery plan extract shows you what is going on beyond; we are the blue dot in the top left, looking towards the row of Mohamaden (Muslim) burials – the first row of headstones at right angles to us in the photograph – shaded in green,…

…these the two men at the end of the Muslim row, with Plot I Row J still behind.  On the right, Sepoy Zinat Khan, 107th Pioneers, killed in action on 30th October 1915, and on the left, Lance Naik Sheikh Wasin Din, 3rd Sappers & Miners, who died on 19th October 1915.

Continuing down the row, on the right, Rifleman Sajawal Khan, Burma Military Police, who died of wounds on 13th October 1915, and on the left, Lance Naik Rawal Khan, Burma Military Police, who was killed in action the same day.

From left, Sepoy Muhammad Khan, 89th Punjabis, killed in action on 3rd October 1915, and then two 17th Infantry (The Loyal Regiment) sepoys, Fateh Muhammad, who died of wounds on 4th October 1915, and Jahangir Khan, who died of wounds on 5th October 1915.

The start of the row, from left, Jemadar Wali Dad, 14th Duchess of Connaught’s Own Baluchistan Infantry, who died of sickness on 28th August 1915, Drummer Saudagar, 129th Duke of Connaught’s Own Baluchis, killed in action on 25th September 1915, and Sepoy Sher Dil, 55th Coke’s Rifles (Frontier Force), who died on 27th September 1915.

As the cemetery plan extract shows, in front of the Muslim row is a row of German burials, those at this end…

…among the final German burials made here in May 1918,…

…the remainder of the men in the row killed earlier in April.

Looking north east towards the row of German graves, the Muslim graves behind, and Plot I in the background.  Panning to our left,…

…one would presume that there were once graves (Portuguese, maybe?) in this vacant area at this end of the cemetery, but I can find no supporting evidence for this.

We shall explore the area directly ahead of us surrounded by the inlaid white-stone border a little later.  In the meantime, on our left,…

…more German graves in the cemetery’s eastern corner.  Those buried in the front row are also casualties from the first week of May 1918,…

…the men in the second row all killed at the end of April or early May, except the man in the centre on the left – Gefreiter Ernst Otto – who has been given a date of death of 30th October 1918,…

…the GRRF confirming the date.  The Aubers Ridge would remain in German hands until October 1918, so I presume this man died during the fighting then, quite likely a wounded prisoner who subsequently died.  There is also, according to this GRRF, a German whose date of death is given as 19th July 1919 buried here; one wonders his story.

Behind, next to two unknown Germans, is the single British burial designated as Plot IV Row J, Private H. J. Parrott, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry) who died on 2nd July 1917,…

…and was the final burial made by the British here for fourteen months – the cemetery was effectively closed until the Germans began using it in April 1918 – until September 1918.

Looking back at the German graves in the cemetery’s eastern corner.  The lone British grave in the right foreground, a man killed in June 1917,…

…is seen again here on the right, one of just four burials in Plot IV Row H, the other men killed in May 1917 (left),…

…as are these men buried in Row G.

Two more Beaumonts, one in Row F (foreground left), and one immediately behind in Row E, both Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, both spring 1917 casualties, and neither, you will be pleased to hear, executed.

Plot IV Rows D, C & B, and if we turn right, attached to Row B,…

…are five more German graves, the first three April 1918 casualties, the final two unidentified and undated.  The discoloured headstone of Oskar Boll, second from left,…

…can be seen here in the middle distance on the far left as we look north east, back the way we have come, the cemetery boundary now on our right.  The two rows of German graves in the foreground,…

…cross much of the cemetery.  On the very far left of this shot, in shadow,…

…and again in the far background here in the centre, the single headstone is that of Bruno Nitschke, the first German we encountered in this cemetery.

Around a third of the German casualties – thirty three out of a total of ninety – are unidentified,…

…although I’d quite like to know the difference between ‘An unknown German soldier’ & ‘A German soldier’, both of which we have here.  The only identified man among these six, Musketier Hermann Fick,…

…can be found near the bottom of this GRRF.

All but a very few of the German burials in this cemetery are men killed during the Battle of the Lys,…

…the German offensive in Flanders fought between 7th & 29th April 1918.  The row of headstones furthest right in the background,…

…are those of the first row, now in the background, of the Indian Plot, within the little inlaid border we saw earlier, which consists of four rows of graves, the two closest to us…

…Rows C (nearest the camera) & D,…

…and at the back of the plot, Row B on the right & Row A on the left.  We’ll take a look at some of the graves within,…

…beginning with these two Indian stretcher bearers in Row A, both of whom were working for the 19th British Field Ambulance.  On the left, the grave of Bearer Dori, who died of wounds on 27th May 1915, and on the right, Bearer Nand Ram, who died of wounds on 9th May 1915.

Four more men who died on 9th May 1915.  From left, Sepoy Khan Mir, 58th Vaughan’s Rifles, Rifleman Manbir Limbu, 9th Gurkha Rifles, Rifleman Sherbahadur Bisht, 9th Gurkha Rifles, and Havildar Indar Singh, 58th Vaughan’s Rifles.

Indian Row B, from far left, Rifleman Khark (or Kharak) Bikram Rai, 1st King George’s Own Gurkha Rifles (The Malaun Regiment), killed in action on 21st August 1915, Haviladar Narsing Thapa, 4th Gurkha Rifles, killed in action on 22nd May 1915, ‘A Soldier of the Great War’, Unknown Indian, 4th Gurkha Rifles, and on the far right, Lance Naik Rale Pun, 1st King George’s Own Gurkha Rifles (The Malaun Regiment), who died on 21st November 1915.

Indian Row C, on the left, Sepoy Shiunath Singh, 89th Punjabis, killed in action on 28th September 1915, in the centre, Jemadar Jagdam Singh, 89th Punjabis, killed in action on 26th September 1915, and on the right, Sepoy Maya Singh, 47th Sikhs, who died of wounds on 18th September 1915.

Rifleman Thagising Rawat, 2/39th Garhwal Rifles, killed in action on 21st August 1915,…

…and at the end of Row C, on the left, Rifleman Bahadursing Sahi, 2nd King Edward’s Own Gurkha Rifles (The Sirmoor Rifles), killed in action on 28th May 1915, and on the right Naik Ram Narain, 6th Jat Light Infantry, who died of wounds on 1st June 1915.

The start of Indian Row D, on the left Sepoy Kartar Singh, 58th Vaughan’s Rifles (Frontier Force), who died of wounds on 3rd November 1915, in the centre, Rifleman Pirthiman Limbu, 9th Gurkha Rifles, who died of wounds on 24th October 1915, and on the right Rifleman Pahlman Gurung, 5th Gurkha Rifles (Frontier Force) who died on 18th October 1915.

Indian Row D continues with, on the left, Sepoy Sham Singh, 27th Punjabis, who died of wounds on 10th October 1915, and on the right Sepoy Wazir Singh, 28th Punjabis, attd. 57th Wilde’s Rifles (Frontier Force), who was killed in action on 26th September 1915,…

…and these are the final graves in Row D, the man closest to the camera Sepoy Bishn Singh, 89th Punjabis, who was killed in action on 25th September 1915.

The rest of the cemetery consists of the largest plot, Plot III, seen here as we look south west back towards the Cross of Sacrifice in the background, and the tiny Plot V, also at the far end of the cemetery.  So before we continue,…

…here’s a third panorama which, like the second one, is also taken from Richebourg L’Avoue, this time looking east to south east, officially; ‘Seven Section Panorama Western Front. Field of View: Illies to Cour D’Avoue Farm Direction of view: East to South East Camers location: Richebourg L’Avoue’,…

…which equates roughly to this.  Illies (today Herlies) is about four and a half miles away on the far right of this map from late July 1915, and Cour D’Avoue Farm – note the square moat – is marked on the far left,…

…and is seen in close-up here, the farm buildings and the square outline of the moat, or at least the hedges surrounding the moat, clear to see, I think,…

…and seen again on the far right here, in a larger version of the right half of the panorama.  The trees you can see behind the German lines on the far left…

…are seen again here in this close-up which shows a British dugout in a support trench in the foreground, with numerous dugout entrances visible in the British front line not so many yards beyond, and the German front line crossing the picture in front of the trees, all perfect examples of typical French Flanders breastworks.

And here’s the left half, and you can follow the British front line sandbags right the way across to the far left, the support trench still in the foreground, where a careful look reveals the tower of the church at Illies on the horizon,…

…seen here again as we zoom in; the roof immediately to the left of the tower must be one of the buildings beyond the church, the remains of which you can see in the insets.  A finer series of shots showing exactly how trenches had to be constructed in the wetlands of French Flanders, with the water table not so far below the surface of the ground, would be hard to find, methinks.  This close-up of the reverse of the British trench shows the wooden revetting used to keep the trench side relatively vertical, with sandbagged sections to protect from blast from behind, and a sandbagged dugout, because you couldn’t make dugouts below ground, on the left.  And on the other side, huge quantities of sandbags, along with anything from large sods of earth to fascines, wooden planks, logs, even furniture removed from nearby dwellings, would face the enemy.  A trench system this different from those found on the Somme is difficult to imagine.

Back to Plot III.  There are nineteen rows in total in the plot, and apart from the final few shorter rows at the far end of the cemetery, each consists of seventeen or eighteen burials.  Those at this end of Row A, closest to the camera, are the earliest, all from March 1916.  The upside-down cemetery plan extract of Plot III shows how it evolved, our position marked as the blue dot once more, the pink area showing the plot as it was prior to 30th June 1916, the area in blue all burials made from 1st July 1916 onwards.  Which leaves the burials marked in green, ninety eight of them in total, all of whom are men killed on just one day, 30th June 1916.

However, before we come on to that fiasco, if we head to the other end of the row,…

…the final graves in the row, except for the R.F.A. serjeant on the left, are a cluster of five German graves, four pictured here, which are not actually marked on the cemetery plan,…

…but are by far the earliest German graves here, one unidentified man also given a date of death of 30th June 1916, quite possibly a wounded prisoner, I would have thought; the single identified man was killed on 27th July 1916.

Happy tree in Pot III Row B (an example of what is known – by very few people, admittedly – as assonance alliteration.  Grammatically.  So there).

Similar shot of St. Vaast Post taken in April 1921.

Panning to our left,…

…these two men in Row C are both men of the Royal Sussex Regiment killed on 30th June 1916.  The two headstones immediately behind in Row D are also Royal Sussex men killed on the same day, as are those in Rows E, F & G behind.  So what happened?  On that day, three Sussex battalions, 11th, 12th & 13th, were involved in what became known as the Battle of the Boar’s Head, one of those battles that, perhaps because it was all over in a mere five hours, and certainly because it took place on the eve of a far greater battle, has been in general forgotten, outside the regiments who fought it.  And the families who mourned.  More about the Boar’s Head shortly.

August & July 1916 burials at the start of Row D, these men from the York & Lancaster Regiment and East & West Yorkshire Regiments,…

…and this private in Row E, killed in May 1916, from the Manchester Regiment.

More May 1916 casualties, Manchesters in Row F on the left, and Durham Light Infantrymen at the start of Row G on the right.

Serjeant Joshua Nield, Lancashire Fusiliers – one of two Nields in Plot III – who died on 5th May 1916 aged 38,…

…and more late summer 1916 casualties in Row O,…

…before we begin to encounter more Royal Sussex Regiment graves, all men who were killed on 30th June 1916, as were most of the men – Sussex or otherwise – who lie beneath the headstones between us and the Stone of Remembrance in the background.  In total, eighty men of the 11th, 12th & 13th battalions of the Royal Sussex Regiment who died on 30th June 1916 are buried in this cemetery,…

…and the reason they died is outlined in the battalions’ war diaries and associated documents (dated 25th June 1916, this is the 12th Bn. Operational Order relating to the forthcoming attack – click to enlarge).

The plan behind the Battle of the Boar’s Head was to, possibly, fool the Germans into thinking that the forthcoming major British offensive would take place in the Pas de Calais, and, certainly, to prevent the Germans from moving troops south to the Somme once the offensive began.  It failed on both counts.

All three Sussex battalions had been formed in August 1914 and were known as the South Downs Pals.

11th Bn., although indeed involved, were in support of the other two battalions, their number of dead minimal – just four – until you look at the number of wounded & missing, and note the final entry of the day above, and the first entry for the following day below.

Nineteen men of the Sussex Regiment men buried in this plot are 11th Bn. men killed on 30th June, all but one identified, and although I don’t think there are any more 11th Bn. casualties from that day buried in other cemeteries, there are six men of the 11th Bn. killed on 30th June on the list of Sussex names to be found on the Loos Memorial at Dud Corner Cemetery in Loos-en-Gohelle.

The 12th Bn. war diary is succinct, with casualty details listed on the right.  Close to thirty of their dead are buried here in Plot III, and other 12th Bn. men are to be found in small numbers in other cemeteries in the area.

The 13th Bn. war diary, however, although a little confusing (ignore, or read separately, the piece I have highlighted), gives somewhat more detail,…

…and ends with, near the top, ‘Principle causes of failure’.  All pages enlarge if clicked.  Over thirty 13th Bn. men are buried here, more than either of the other two Sussex battalions, and once again there are more 13th Bn. men killed on 30th June who are buried in other cemeteries in the area, including Bethune Town Cemetery, Longuenesse Souvenir Cemetery, Rue-des-Berceaux Military Cemetery, Windy Corner Cemetery, Royal Irish Rifles Graveyard & Merville Communal Cemetery.  Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery, Souchez, contains 68 men of 12th or 13th Bns killed on 30th June, and there are a total of 182 names of missing men, from both these battalions, to be found on the Loos Memorial.

11th Bn casualties in Row R in the foreground, and 13th Bn men in Row S behind.  In a fight lasting less than half a day, the three Sussex battalions lost seventeen officers and 349 men killed, along with around 1,000 wounded, missing, or taken prisoner.

12th Bn. officer casualties.  Flanders mud would prove no less forgiving than its Somme counterpart when it came to the fate of the Pals battalions on the Western Front.  The Sussex Regimental History refers to the battle as ‘The Day Sussex Died’.

Machine Gun Corps (Infantry) private in the final row, among the eighteen non-Sussex casualties in the plot who died on 30th June 1916,…

…leaving us just one final plot to view,…

…after we look at one last panorama, once again taken from Richebourg L’Avoue looking south to south east.

This time the very rough trench in the foreground is a rudimentary third line,…

…and beyond, these are the wooden breastworks of the second line, the sandbags once again to protect men from the blast from German shells landing in the grass in front of us, and beyond that, the British front line, and if you enlarge this image you will spot three signs pointing in our direction, and thus hidden from the Germans, directing troops to the entrances into the front-line trench.

Plot V consists of the scattered graves seen here in the left background, the three headstones shoulder-to-shoulder on the right, and those that back the row that crosses much of this picture (the start of Plot II Row V that we saw at the very beginning of this post), all these men killed in September 1918, except for one man killed on the first day of October.  And as the headstones of Plot V Row A that back Plot II Row V face the other way,…

…we’d better do this.  These five men of the Worcestershire Regiment were killed on 3rd September 1918.  In front of this row…

…these three burials are all given the grave reference of Plot V Row B1,…

…and all are Royal Warwickshire Regiment men killed on 6th September 1918.

The other grave in Row B, seen here furthest right,…

…and indeed all the remaining burials in Plot V once again face the other way,…

…and so we’ll view them from here.  This is the other man buried in Row B, a Royal Warwickshire private killed on 8th September 1918, and the two graves behind…

..in Row C are, on the left, Lance Corporal G. Courage, Wiltshire Regiment, who died on 15th September 1918, and on the right,…

…Second Lieutenant B. R. Penderel-Brodhurst, Royal Engineers, killed in action on 1st October 1918 aged 27, and the final British burial made here.  It may be that Penderel-Brodhurst was a descendent of the Pendrell brothers who helped King Charles II escape from Cromwell’s men after the Battle of Worcester in 1651 (think oak trees).  Or it may not.  Behind,…

…the two men in Row D died on 15th & 20th September 1918,…

…and the three in Row E died on 8th, 12th & 15th September 1918,…

…all the men buried in Plot V listed on this GRRF.

Cross of Sacrifice,…

…and just before we finish,…

…if we turn round and look towards the Stone of Remembrance, the eagle-eyed among you may have spotted something at the base of the Stone in earlier pictures,…

…and a closer look reveals, appropriately, a small token of remembrance for the Royal Sussex Regiment (Angmering is a few miles from Littlehampton on England’s south coast),…

…and some faded wooden crosses with the regimental emblem.

Beyond the Stone,…

…along the cemetery’s southern boundary, are three special memorial headstones,…

…all three to men ‘Believed to be buried in this cemetery’, the two Welch Regiment men centre & left both killed on 20th September 1918, and the Durham Light Infantry private on the right a Battle of the Lys casualty who died, presumably in captivity, on 13th April 1918.  I would guess that he is buried among the German casualties who died on, or around, the same date.

A short distance from the special memorials there are a couple of information boards,…

…and then,…

…after one final look back at the cemetery,…

…we take our leave.  And I thank you if you’ve got this far, because, of the hundreds of cemeteries I have now written about, this has been one of the trickiest, certainly from the point of keeping your interest, which I may, or may not have done.  Nonetheless, for anyone visiting, this should help you find your way around.

Our travels in French Flanders are now nearly at an end,…

…although we have yet to visit one small area of the battlefield that has loomed large in many of these posts over the years, and that is the Aubers Ridge itself.  Actually, as you probably know by now, the Aubers Ridge doesn’t loom large over anything, being hardly any higher than the surrounding landscape, but any kind of height advantage in Flanders is an advantage indeed, and thus the ridge saw much action, in particular during the dark days of 1915.  And once we’ve done that we’ll head north once more, about fifteen miles or so, back towards Ypres.