Flesquieres
Departement du Nord
Nord-Pas-de-Calais France
Postal Code: 59267
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Cemetery notes and/or description:
Flesquieres is a village at the junction of the D92 and D89 roads, about 5 kilometres south-west of the main road from Cambrai to Bapaume. The Cemetery lies a little east of the village on the south (right) side of the D92 road to Cantaing.
Flesquieres village was attacked by the 51st (Highland) Division, with tanks, on November 20, 1917, in the Battle of Cambrai, but held for a time by a German officer with only a few men; it was captured on the 21st. It was lost in the later stages of the battle, and retaken on the 27th September, 1918, by the 3rd Division.
Flesquieres Hill Cemetery was originally made by the 2nd Division, in 1918, behind a German cemetery ("Flesquieres Soldiers' Cemetery No. 2"); but the German graves were removed after the Armistice to Flesquieres Communcal Cemetery German Extension (which in its turn was removed, with 583 graves, in 1924). On the site of the German cemetery Plots III-VIII and in them were reburied 688 British soldiers from the battlefields of Havrincourt, Flesquieres, Marcoing and Masnieres and from a few other burial grounds. There are now over 900, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, over one-third are unidentified and special memorials are erected to five officers and men from the United Kingdom and two from New Zealand, known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of three men of the Royal Naval Division buried at the end of 1917 in the 63rd Division Cemetery, Marcoing, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire. |
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