In Memory of
Captain C A SAMPSON
25th Bn., London Regiment (Cyclists)
who died age 20 on 09 August 1918
Remembered with honour
Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery,
Somme
,
France
. Grave Ref. IV. E. 6.
Commemorated in perpetuity by
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery,
Somme
,
France
.
Villers-Bretonneux became famous in 1918, when the German advance on
Amiens
ended in the capture of the village by their tanks and infantry on 23
April. On the following day, the 4th and 5th Australian Divisions, with
units of the 8th and 18th Divisions, recaptured the whole of the village
and on 8 August 1918, the 2nd and 5th Australian Divisions advanced from
its eastern outskirts in the Battle of Amiens.
VILLERS-BRETONNEUX
MILITARY
CEMETERY
was made after the Armistice when graves were brought in from other burial
grounds in the area and from the battlefields. Plots I to XX were
completed by 1920 and contain mostly Australian graves, almost all from
the period March to August 1918. Plots IIIA, VIA, XIIIA and XVIA, and Rows
in other Plots lettered AA, were completed by 1925, and contain a much
larger proportion of unidentified graves brought from a wider area. Later
still, 444 graves were brought in from
Dury
Hospital
Military
Cemetery
. The following were among the burial grounds from which British graves
were taken to
Villers-Bretonneux
Military
Cemetery
.
CARD
COPSE
CEMETERY
, MARCELCAVE, on the road to Fouilloy, where 35 Australian soldiers were
buried by the 2nd Australian Division in July and August, 1918. DURY
HOSPITAL MILITARY, CEMETERY, under the wall of the Asylum near the West
side of the Amiens-Dury road. From August, 1918, to January, 1919, this
building was used intermittently by British medical units, and a cemetery
was made next to an existing
French
Military
Cemetery
. The British cemetery contained the graves of 195 Canadian and 185
United Kingdom
soldiers and airmen; 63 Australian soldiers; one man of the Cape Auxiliary
Horse Transport Corps; and one French and one American soldier.
HIGH
CEMETERY
, SAILLY-LE-SEC, on the road to Ville-sur-Ancre, where 18
United Kingdom
and eleven Australian soldiers were buried in June-August, 1918.
KANGAROO
CEMETERY
, SAILLY-LE-SEC (on the Ville-sur-Ancre road, but nearer Sailly), where 13
Australian soldiers were buried by the 41st Battalion in March-April,
1918, and 14 of the 58th (
London
) Division by their comrades in August, 1918. LAMOTTE-EN-SANTERRE COMMUNAL
CEMETERY EXTENSION. The village was captured by Australian troops on the
8th August, 1918, and the Extension contained the graves of 56 Australian
and twelve
United Kingdom
soldiers who fell in August and September. LA NEUVILLE-LES-BRAY COMMUNAL
CEMETERY, containing the grave of one Australian soldier who fell in
August, 1918. LE HAMELET BRITISH CEMETERY (behind the Church), containing
the graves of 25 Australian soldiers who fell in April-July, 1918; and the
COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, in which 27 Australian soldiers and one from
the United Kingdom were buried in July and August, 1916.
MIDWAY
CEMETERY
, MARCELCAVE, 1,500 yards North-West of Marcelcave Church, made by the
Canadian Corps and containing the graves of 53 Canadian and three
United Kingdom
soldiers who fell in August, 1918. VAUX-SUR-SOMME COMMUNAL CEMETERY,
containing three Australian graves of March-April, 1918, and two
United Kingdom
of 1916 and 1917; and the EXTENSION, made in May-August, 1918, and
containing the graves of 130 Australian soldiers and 104 soldiers (mainly
58th Division and Artillery) and one airman from the
United Kingdom
. WARFUSEE-ABANCOURT COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, in which five Australian
soldiers were buried by the 12th Australian Field Ambulance in August,
1918. There are now 2,142 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War
buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 609 of the burials are
unidentified but there are special memorials to five casualties known or
believed to be buried among them, and to 15 buried in other cemeteries
whose graves could not be found on concentration. The cemetery also
contains the graves of two
New Zealand
airmen of the Second World War. Within the cemetery stands the
VILLERS-BRETONNEUX MEMORIAL, the Australian national memorial erected to
commemorate all Australian soldiers who fought in
France
and
Belgium
during the First World War, to their dead, and especially to name those of
the dead whose graves are not known. The 10,765 Australian servicemen
named on the memorial died in the battlefields of the Somme,
Arras
, the German advance of 1918 and the Advance to Victory. The memorial was
unveiled by King George VI in July 1938. Both cemetery and memorial were
designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
Villers-Bretonneux is a village 16 kilometres
east of
Amiens
on the straight main road to St Quentin. The Cemetery is about 2
kilometres north of the village on the east side of the road to Fouilloy.
[Courtesy of
Commonwealth War Graves Commission]
|