France 2015 - Day 5 - Grevillers British Cemetery and the New Zealand Memorial

We awoke to quite a nice day and headed off. Our final destination this day was to be Ypres.  The area around Ypres was the site of the other major British/Commonwealth battles in World War I. And just to give you an idea, the distance by road is only 140kms however there are over 50 World War One cemeteries along the route.

We headed down the Albert to Bapaume road, towards Pozières. Just outside the town of Pozières, is the Pozières Memorial to the Missing of 1918.

Pozières British Cemetery  is enclosed within the boundary wall incorporating the Pozières Memorial to the Missing of 1918.

Burials made during 1916, 1917 and 1918 are contained in Plot II and these were made at that time by the fighting units or field ambulances in position here near Pozières. 

All other graves were brought to this cemetery after the Armistice in November 1918. Most of the graves were brought here from battlefield burials in the vicinity of this cemetery. Most of these casualties were British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the surrounding fields during the autumn battles of the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Some were casualties discovered in isolated burial plots and small cemeteries from the fighting in August 1918. 

There are now 2,758 Commonwealth servicemen buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 1,380 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 23 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. There is also one German soldier buried here (http://www.greatwar.co.uk/)

We only admired this place from the outside as we wanted to get some km's under our belt.

One of the sculptures in the edge of the gates

A view from the memorial looking towards Albert. That's the 1st Division Memorial on the left, where were yesterday.

Next we headed through Pozières towards Bapaume. The NZ division fought around Bapaume in 1918. On the 24 August it took a lead role.

In a single day the New Zealanders captured the town of Grévillers, Loupart Wood and the village of Biefvillers. The following day they began to surround the town of Bapaume, where several major roads intersected. The German defenders resisted the siege until the night of 28 August, when they retreated to positions just east of Bancourt and Frémicourt. The New Zealanders entered Bapaume next day and continued to push the front line further east through lightly defended towns and across largely abandoned terrain until they halted east of Bertincourt to regroup. (nzhistory.net.nz)

We stopped at Grévillers British Cemetery.

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. 

Jo in the middle of the cemetery

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.(CWGC.org)

The French soldiers graves are marked with crosses as opposed to the headstones of the commonwealth soldiers.

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. (CWGC.org)

Looking down the centre of the cemetery toward the NZ Memorial.

The Cross of Sacrifice in front of the memorial.

Poppies on the side of road opposite the cemetery. Jo went to take photos of some and brushed some stinging nettle. Needless to say one of us found that funny, and one didn't.