Lonsdale 2 Cemetery

[Peter Woodger]

Hi

Lonsdale Cemetery Number 2.

Lonsdale 2 was made before the formation of IWGC and the burials therein were concentrated to Lonsdale 1 (now Lonsdale) by a Labour Coy, under the direction of the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquires, in late 1919 when the only IWGC input was the layout design for Lonsdale.

When and if in this analysis I am doubting what CWGC say it is not a criticism of them as they are repeating the information they were given by the Army.

Let me put forward this hypothesis for debate.

Statement by CWGC in the introduction to the on line register for Lonsdale states that “V Corps cleared the battlefield in the spring of 1917and made, amongst others, Lonsdale 1 and 2”

In the introduction to the 1989 edition of the Register for Lonsdale it states that “Lonsdale 2 …. Contained the graves of 38 UK soldiers… and 2 Germans”

I am taking the following as facts

1. The only Germans buried by the British in British cemeteries were POWs who died of their wounds.

2. V Corps did not exhume and rebury bodies in the spring of 1917 they only buried bodies visible on the surface.

If the above facts are accepted there is no way that the 2 Germans were buried in Lonsdale 2 by V Corps. When V Corps cleared the battlefield from Serre to Lonsdale they must have come across a large number of German bodies that would have been buried by them in shell holes or redundant trenches but not in the new cemeteries. There is no way that they would know that these 2 Germans had died as prisoners.

I choose to accept that there were 2 Germans buried in Lonsdale 2 and dismiss the possibility that the Germans buried 2 of their own dead in Lonsdale 2 when it was under German control in 1918 because this does not appear as a regular practice in this area.

My conclusion is that V Corps did not make this cemetery in the spring of 1917 but at that time they added to an existing cemetery, this is a known practice at for example Beaumont-Hamel.

I consider the following to support the earlier start to this cemetery.

1. The valley that contained both the Lonsdale cemeteries is an extension of Blighty Valley and was a well used route for troops and supplies to reach the front lines on Thiepval Ridge.

2. As soon as the Nordwerk was taken and the German line of the Leipzig Redoubt was pushed back this valley would be in dead ground from the German view

3. Out of respect for the dead, sanitation and the morale of troops moving past the bodies lying on the ground would have been buried.

The Border Regiment men originally buried in Lonsdale 2 now lie in Row X of Plots 3, 4, 5 and 6 of Lonsdale with a small number in Plot 3 Row W. With them there are 3 men of the 1/4th Gloucestershire who attacked and made gains against the Leipzig redoubt on 21st Aug.

I am therefore suggesting that Lonsdale 2 cemetery was started just after the attack on 21st Aug. 2 German prisoners who died of their wounds were buried with 3 men of 1/4th Gloucs and a number of 11th Border men who had lain dead since 1st July. In the spring of 1917 V Corps added more bodies to this small cemetery when they cleared the battlefield.

If the burial returns for Lonsdale still exist and the Germans were known then their date of death would date the original burials if my hypothesis is correct.

I realize that the above reasons also suggest that Lonsdale 1 had an earlier start date and V Corps added to its number in 1917.

Peter

[willy]

peter, do you happen to know when the last soldiers were buried in Lonsdale ?

[Peter Woodger]

Willy

Not an easy question to answer but here is a best effort.

The majority of Plot 1 was present at the Armistice. Sometime in summer/autumn 1919 Lonsdale became a concentration cemetery. The nearby cemeteries of Connaught, Mill Road and Blighty Valley were also concentration cemeteries at this time so that the burials in each were of men killed in the local area.

As far as their concentration areas are concerned Mill Road and Connaught are symmetrical in layout so to add burials after the main concentration one would have needed to find 2 large plots worth of bodies. Lonsdale however is a long thin cemetery and to make an extra row across would only need 40 bodies and the cross would be placed a little further back.

It is therefore possible that after 1919 Lonsdale could have been the receptor for late finds of bodies in the Thiepval area or all those finds could have been taken to Serre 1 or 2.

On balance I believe the last burial in Lonsdale would have been in the late Autumn of 1919.

Your question may have wanted to know the latest date of death of burials in Lonsdale in which case the answer is that there are 2 burials dated April and 1 dated August 1918 there are 2 in Jan 2 in Feb 1917. All other dated burials are 1916.

If I still have missed the point please ask again.

Peter

[willy]

peter

my grandfather g t snelling, and able seaman wallace, were exhumed 28/1/20 , from the ancre valley near aveluy wood and buried lonsdale no1, so they were still using lonsdale as a concentration cemty then.,

[Peter Woodger]

Willy

That is very useful information. It looks like the Labour Coys were working in Lonsdale a bit later than my estimate of Summer/Autumn 19. There was still another 400 burials to be made at that date.

Peter

[willy]

peter, another clue would be that my gf is not buried in an end row either, he is some way back 6 rows or so, there must therefore have been burials here after, him.

Another point is that there are other cemtys, closer to his original resting place, so lonsdale must have been chosen for a good reason.

[Peter Woodger]

Willy

He is 10 rows back which is what I meant by 400 still to be buried.

Do you have a Map reference of the original burial? Aveluy is on the wrong side of the sub sector boundry for clearance to Lonsdale and it is unusual, but not unknown for this to happen.

Peter

[willy]

the map reference is q.35.b5.5 at the bottom of Howson rd trench just across the railway line.

[Peter Woodger]

Willy

Here is a section of the map that I believe would have been issued to the Commander of the Labour Companies clearing in this area with the number of registered bodies in blue crayon. You will note that at exactly your map reference there were the registered burial of 2 bodies. The blue line just to the right is the sub sector boundary between East Ancre and West Ancre which is why I would not have expected clearance to Lonsdale but if Aveluy Wood (Lancashire Dump) and Mesnil CCE were not receiving that day then Lonsdale is the nearest Concentration Cemetery.

Thank you very much for contributing, your information has been very useful.

Peter

[willy]

peter, those two burials were my grandfather, and ableseaman wallace , both of hood btn.killed by shellfire.

[willy]

I believe that the first burials made on this site were soon after the 1st july 1916, these are laid just inside the main entrance, and from the border regiment they are laid as in a battlefield cemty, close together.

The two germans could well have been buried around this time also ? but certainly before lonsdale 1 was started in 1917.

will

[Peter Woodger]

Will

The burials just inside the entrance to Lonsdale are Plot 1 and the majority of them were the original Lonsdale 1 cemetery.

These burials could not have been made until the guns that killed these men were no longer in position. My quick scan reading of my books cannot find a specific reference to the fall of the Nordwerk but the burials could not take place until that happened.

Can anyone give me a date for the fall of the Nordwerk?

Peter

[willy]

i will see what i have on the the fall of leipzig redoubt, but i'm sure that i have read somewhere that these burials were made shortly after 1st july, how given the proximity of the german lines i am not sure either.

[willy]

The best i can up with is, the leipzig salient, grantaloch, was partly taken on the 1st, and again on the 3rd, the nordwerk which caused so many losses, was probably taken around end august, the 21st perhaps? the thiepval ridge was finaly taken in september, and the nordwerk had to have been taken before this.

So, the first organised burials were probably made no earlier than september 1916, there is also an account of german prisoners being taken in june and several killed by their own shells whilst attempting to get to the british front line, as prisoners they would have been buried by the british.

so i conclude that you are pretty much right in your hypothesis.

[the_ageing_young_rebel]

On 30/11/2008 at 17:22, Peter Woodger said:

Here is a section of the map that I believe would have been issued to the Commander of the Labour Companies clearing in this area with the number of registered bodies in blue crayon.

Hi Peter,

            I don't suppose you have a wider version of this map do you? Or remember where you got it from?

Thanks

[WhiteStarLine]

1 hour ago, the_ageing_young_rebel said:

wider version of this map do you? Or remember where you got it from?

Click on the image below for a large version.  It is available online free-of-charge.

It comes from a collection of paper trench maps held by the Imperial War Museums and was scanned by forum member @Howard in March 2006 as part of a project digitising 10,000 maps and aerials.  The Western Front Association has kindly made it available for all (logged in members get full zoom and free download).

Margin notes read "Annotated with disinternments and cemeteries. Marked AAM on reverse. From Messer collection."

Quickest way to find it is to visit the link above and in the search box start typing in authu.  Select Authuille, then right click on the map and choose Map Id Jump.  Paste in m_5_000767 and click OK.  This gives you the entire 32 x 16 km map from Albert to Bapaume.

 

[Howard]

There is set of maps known colloquially as the Body Density series. All are available on TrenchMapper. They are part of a 4 year scanning project starting in the early 2000s.

Some of these are marked AAM, thought to refer to Lt-Col. Arthur Albert Messer, others are marked Sir Herbert Ellissen.

It is believed the maps marked AAM were compiled between December 1918 and July 1919 when Lt-Col. Arthur Albert Messer was working as the Assistant Director of Graves Registration and Enquiries in France.  During this period he had been instructed to select and lay out war cemeteries and plot isolated graves.  The blue pencil numbers equate to the number of marked burials registered in each square e.g. take square 36.N. 9.c. - CWGC records show that in November 1919 when the Graves Concentration Unit visited this square it found just 3 crosses :-

Cross 1 was marked 'Erected to the memory of 49 Australian Soldiers'

Cross 2 was marked 'Erected to the memory of 115 Australian Soldiers'

Cross 3 was marked 'An unknown number of British soldiers'

But, it removed nearly 300 bodies from this square for re-burial in Rue-David Cemetery.  There were further recoveries, from unmarked graves, being made from this square in December 1920, October 1921 and April 1922.

Sir Herbert Ellissen maps

The Sir Herbert Ellissen maps are clearly of a later period than the AAM maps as he was only knighted at the end of July 1923.  He had been appointed as the IWGC Financial Adviser and Controller of Administration in September 1920, so these maps were probably produced so he could oversee the establishment of war cemeteries in France and Belgium.  The information written on these maps show the development of CWGC cemeteries.  Those marked with a 'church with a spire' symbol show that they are cemeteries which have had a Cross of Sacrifice erected in them.  Those with a 'hot cross bun' are those without (although these are clearly work in progress maps as some 'hot cross bun' sites do later get Crosses).  Some sites are also shown with the number of graves in them. 

Howard

[the_ageing_young_rebel]

Thanks @WhiteStarLine and @Howard. Thats really useful and interesting stuff!