Canadian Cemetery No. 5?

[Alan_J]

Just picked up a postcard showing an early view of "Canadian Cemetery No. 5" at Vimy Ridge. This shows the original crosses, but there is no record of a Canadian Cemetery No.5 on the CWGC website, and I can't find anything on Google either.

I'm wondering if anyone has ever come across any mention of this cemetery before? It's possible that it's in fact Canadian Cemetery No. 2 with an incorrect caption, or else that this is a cemetery which was concentrated elsewhere (perhaps into No. 2?) after the photo was taken.

Thanks

Alan

[Alan_J]

Just bumping this up......

[Take on me]

Any idea when the photo was taken? My guess would be that it was later concentrated into the No 2 Cemetery.

Jon

[Alan_J]

Jon,

Hard to tell when it was taken....as there are wooden crosses, plus a gardeners shed, I would guess early 1920s.

Alan

[Jack Sheldon]

Originally there was a different system of numbering for the battlefield cemeteries in the Vimy area. Each began with the letters C-D followed by a number. C-D 27 was near Neuville Saint Vaast, for example. Some of the current cemeteries which now have a name also carry the original C-D number carved near the entrance. One example, I am almost sure, is Givenchy Road cemetery across the way from Canadian Cemetery No 2 in the Vimy Memorial Park, but I cannot remember the number off hand. It is possible that the '5' is a C-D number, but I do not know what cemetery is linked to it.

Jack

[Tom Morgan]

As a follow-up to Jack's post, Zivy Crater Cemetery near Vimy was originally known as CB 1 and this is still carved into the gatepost. And Lichfield crater Cemetery, not far away was originally designated CB 2A.

Tom

[Alan_J]

Originally there was a different system of numbering for the battlefield cemeteries in the Vimy area. Each began with the letters C-D followed by a number. C-D 27 was near Neuville Saint Vaast, for example. Some of the current cemeteries which now have a name also carry the original C-D number carved near the entrance. One example, I am almost sure, is Givenchy Road cemetery across the way from Canadian Cemetery No 2 in the Vimy Memorial Park, but I cannot remember the number off hand. It is possible that the '5' is a C-D number, but I do not know what cemetery is linked to it.

Jack

Givenchy Road is CD1. I suppose it is possible that the number 5 represents something else, but the fact it is captioned Canadian Cemetery may trigger something. However, I've seen quite a few postcards of cemeteries captioned incorrectly, so one never knows. A photographer might have written a '2' which someone read as a '5' - if they weren't familiar with the cemeteries that's entirely possible.

Alan

[laughton]

Just in case someone comes back to this later in life, there is an answer.

 

The Canadian Cemeteries were labelled as:

• first letter "C" for Canadian
• second letter "A" = 1st Division; "B" = 2nd Division; "C" = 3rd Division; "C" = 4trh Division
• the number = assigned to each cemetery as labelled, no apparent geographical significance

Yes, there was a C.D.5 which is what brought me to this old topic, as it was the subject of the GWF topic on Canadian Cemetery No. 2, which was C.D.5. It is located at 44a.S.21.a.6.7.

 

We undertook a project some time ago to gather all the ones we could find, then put them in a spreadsheet. The main topic is on the CEFSG Forum here:

 

Consolidated PINNED list of CA/CB/CC etc cemeteries

 

The master spreadsheet of what we have collected to date, with links to the source of the information is here:

 

Battlefield Burial Grounds CA CB CC CD