Loos British Cemetery in Loos-en-Gohelle, Nord-Pas-de-Calais

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Get directions Loos-en-Gohelle, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France

Coordinates: 50.45163, 2.79882
Cemetery ID:

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Loos (Loos-en-Gohelle) is a village to the north of the road from Lens to Bethune. From Lens, take the N43 towards Bethune. Arriving at Loos, turn right at CWGC sign post. The cemetery is about 1 kilometre from Loos Church in the southern part of the village.

The village has given its name to the Battle of Loos, 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. The great majority of these soldiers fell in the Battle of Loos.

There are nearly 3000 World War I and a small number of World War II casualties commemorated at 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.