Loos British Cemetery

[jay dubaya]

Hoping the kind folks in forum land have or can point me in the right direction for early images of Loos BC, any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

cheers, Jon 

Edited 21 December , 2018 by jay dubaya

[nigelcave]

Can't help with a picture, I'm afraid; but do suggest you edit the title of the thread ....

 

 

[jay dubaya]

That’s predictive text for ya, thanks for that Nigel

[jay dubaya]

Bump

[Michelle Young]

The CWGC site archive section has photos of cemeteries, might be worth a look in there? 

Michelle 

[jay dubaya]

Thanks for that Michelle, I’ve already had a good scan through their photo albums and images from the IWM several of  which I believe show the location and one particular photo I think may show the nucleus of the cemetery under a different name, I will contact the CWGC as there appears to be almost no photos of Loos BC through to the 1960s that I can find online 

 

Jon

[laughton]

Deep in the bowels of research on Lts. McDonald and Wylie Appeal sent me into the same tailspin that it appears the others here have experienced. The link to the other GWF topic where there is also a great deal of information is:

Provincial Cemetery, LoosBy Tom Tulloch-Marshall, 17 May , 2010 in Cemeteries and memorials

 

I too have come across the references to both "Provisional" and "Provincial" and I am not trying to sort that out. The Canadian Records all seem to say Provincial, which makes some sense since Canada started the cemetery and we are made up of "Provinces". The battalions themselves are very much provincial (see this list here).

 

In our case, the CWGC has said that their concentration records show a large number of Canadians recovered in areas where they should not have been found as a result of the Battle of Hill 70 in August 1915. The Canadian details on this are contained in Chapter IX and Map 8 of the Nicholson Official History. We have the full book, sketches and maps on the CEFSG Nicholson Utility. We have already found men that were mis-identified and now it appears that others were concentrated twice, so there exhumation location has nothing to do with the battle. There is no mention of Canadian Cemeteries No. 1 or No. 2 on the CWGC web page, nor is there any reference to the "clean-up" of the cemetery after the war when men were relocated short distances from their original burial place.

 

To address the CWGC issue we have been going back through all the concentration reports and checking on where the Canadian men were lost versus where they were recovered. It was during that process we came across the references to "Canadian Cemetery No. 1" (CC1), "Canadian Cemetery No. 2" (CC2) and the "Provincial Cemetery". Some of the men's Casualty Reports refer to them being buried in "Provincial Cemetery" with trench map coordinates such as 36c.N.1.a.2.7 and 36c.N.1.b.4.9 (map 44a and 36c are the same beast). Then I see that the sign for the Provincial Cemetery, in the other topic posted above, clearly says it is at 36c.M.6.a.7.3. There is a reference there as well to the start of the cemetery in July 1917 (agrees with CWGC) and that it was Plot 1 Rows A and B and Plot 2 Row A.

 

We came upon this accidentally when we started to check the circumstance of casualty for the Canadian men and where they were buried. It seemed logical that if a number of them were in the same area, then that had to be a battlefield cemetery. The immediate question was:

 

"Why are they exhuming these men in an area that is 36c.M.6.b.8.9 and burying them a few yards away at 36c.M.6.a.7.3?"

 

Were they actually moving these men, or is this where they fell? It turns out that they were first concentrated into the graves at CC1 and CC2 and then later moved to the Provincial Cemetery which was later renamed Loos British Cemetery. If you check the GRRF documents, they are named as the Provincial Cemetery, which is changed in pen to Loos British Cemetery. If you check the corresponding COG-BR documents they are all Loos British Cemetery. In both instances, the cemeteries are at the same location 36c.M.6.a.7.3. I have not yet figured out how that differs from what Tom has on his posts in the other topic with the excellent White Cross Map:

 

• https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/147091-provincial-cemetery-loos/?do=findComment&comment=1415745
• https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/147091-provincial-cemetery-loos/?do=findComment&comment=1415747

 

We have also discovered in our research that the IWGC revised a number of the COG-BR documents, as we found some that were signed and dated and others that were not. This was the origin of the task at hand, as we were trying to determine if all of these were the result of the infamous "18th Labour Coy" and "Captain R. K. Dibb" or "Lieut. W. C. Nicholl". Some may recall, this takes us back to the issue of the 18th Labour Coy error in the trench map coordinates for 2nd Lieutenant Kipling. Our cases for Lieutenants McDonald & Wylie are closely tied to your case for 2nd Lieutenant Kipling. Here are the applicable document links (the complete sets are on our shared CEFSG MediaFire Site - Loos British Cemetery) Note that there are two separate COG-BR ZIP Files, which generally separates them from those that were buried in or near the current cemetery and the others from the smaller summaries on the CWGC list.

 

 

CWGC Records for Loos British Cemetery

Plot & Row	GRRF	COG-BR
3A	2023612	2303803
3B	2023613	2302674
3C	2023614 2023615	2302675

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few examples, as I recall members are looking for specifics on the men that were buried here: (do you want to see more?)

 

Casualty Records for Known Canadians in Loos BC

CEF Soldier	COD 1	COD 2	E-13
Private Fred Haldorson #721929 - 16th Battalion CEF buried in the Provincial Cemetery Grave 3.A.18 grave reference given as 44a.M.6.a.7.3 exhumed from Canadian Cemetery No. 1 Loos-en-Gohelle 44a H.31.c.5.1
Private James Middlemiss #742979 - 26th Battalion CEF buried in the Loos British Cemetery Grave 3.B.14 exhumed from Lens Canadian Cemetery No. 1 originally buried Bugs Alley Trench 36c.N.1.c.1.9
Sergeant Arthur Menard #120862 - 22nd Battalion CEF buried Loos British Cemetery Grave 3.C.6 exhumed from Cite. St. Emile (that would be 36c.N.8) E-13 says Provincial Cemetery burial
Private Alex Howley #415172 - 7th Battalion CEF buried Provincial Cemetery Grave 3.A.10 TMC given as 441.M.6.a.7.3 exhumed from Canadian Cemetery No. 2 Loos-en-Gohelle

Edited 12 March , 2019 by laughton
added links to Tom's White Cross Map; added Howley

[battle of loos]

good Morning,

 

thisis some picture about the Loos British Cemetery :

 

 

 

2018 :

 

 

 

15th aug. 1917 :

Source: Canadian Archive : ANC PA 1598

 

Now a hundred yards to the right of the cemetery, a new Canadian monument is under construction.
 

 

michel 

[laughton]

There are perhaps other cemeteries that were concentrated into the Loos British Cemetery that are not detailed on the CWGC page. For example, this COG-BR would suggest a battlefield cemetery at 44a.G.28.c.7.3:

 

 

There are similar large plots at other locations:

• COG-BR 2302717 44a.G.21.a.6.4
• COG-BR 2302718 44a.H.8.b.4.2

The list of others is extensive. We would not know which ones related to specific periods, unless one man was identified in each group, which might give us a clue.

 

The CWGC identifies these as major concentrations:

 

Quote

The village has given its name to the battle of the 25th September - 8th October 1915, in which it was captured from the Germans by the 15th (Scottish) and 47th (London) Divisions, and defended by French troops on the 8th October.

 

The cemetery was begun by the Canadian Corps in July 1917, and the graves then made are contained in Rows A and B of Plot I and Row A of Plot II.

 

The remainder of the cemetery was formed after the Armistice by the concentration of graves from the battlefields and smaller cemeteries over a wide area North and East of the village, including:-  (DAL = on the list provided by David Avery from the CWGC)

• BARTS ALLEY CEMETERY, VERMELLES DAL near Vermelles 36c.G.3.c.5.5, about 1 kilometre North-East of the village, named from a communication trench in which a Dressing Station was established. It contained the graves of 38 soldiers from the United Kingdom, who fell, for the most part, in the Battle of Loos.
• CALDRON MILITARY CEMETERY (RED MILL) 44a.M.28.c.65.68, in the Southern part of the town of LIEVIN, in which were buried 85 soldiers from the United Kingdom (mainly of the 46th (North Midland) Division), 38 from Canada and one German.
• CITE CALONNE MILITARY CEMETERY, LIEVIN 44a.M.14.c.8.9, in the middle of a mining village between Grenay and Lievin. The cemetery was begun by French troops and used by the British from March, 1916, onwards. It contained the graves of 207 soldiers from the United Kingdom, five from Canada, 130 French and six German.
• CORKSCREW CEMETERY, LOOS (Corkscrew British Cemetery, Lievin? 44a.M.11.a.3.3), which was close to the mine known as Fosse II. It contained the graves of 168 soldiers from the United Kingdom and 38 from Canada.
• COURCELLES-LES-LENS COMMUNAL CEMETERY DAL 44a.P.29.d.3.2, in which 19 soldiers and one airman from the United Kingdom, mainly of the 12th (Eastern) Division, were buried in October, 1918.
• LIEVIN STATION CEMETERY 44a.M.22.b.3.6, on the North-West side of the railway station, used in 1917 and containing the graves of 48 soldiers from the United Kingdom (almost all of the 46th (North Midland) Division) and 12 from Canada.
• LOOS (FORT GLATZ) GERMAN CEMETERY DAL 36c.G.29.c.9.3, named from a German strong point at the North-West corner of the village, and containing the graves of three soldiers from the United Kingdom who fell in the summer of 1915.

The great majority of the soldiers buried here fell in the Battle of Loos. There are nearly 3,000, 1914-18 and a small number of 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, two-thirds from the 1914-18 are unidentified and special memorials are erected to two soldiers from the United Kingdom and four from Canada who are known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of 44 soldiers from Canada and 12 from the United Kingdom, buried in other cemeteries, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire. The cemetery covers an area of 11,364 square metres and is enclosed by a rubble wall.

 

Edited 20 April , 2019 by laughton
fixed typo on TMC