Arras Memorial | |
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Commonwealth War Graves Commission | |
For forces of the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand | |
Unveiled | 31 July 1932 |
Location | 50°17′14.58″N02°45′35.32″E / 50.2873833°N 2.7598111°E |
Designed by | Sir Edwin Lutyens (architect) Sir William Reid Dick (sculptor) |
Here are recorded the names of 35942 officers and men of the forces of the British Empire who fell in the Battles of Arras or in air operations above the Western Front and who have no known grave [1] | |
Official name | Funerary and memory sites of the First World War (Western Front) |
Type | Cultural |
Criteria | i, ii, vi |
Designated | 2023 (45th session) |
Reference no. | 1567-PC11 |
Statistics source: Cemetery details. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. |
The Arras Memorial is a World War I memorial in France, located in the Faubourg d'Amiens British Cemetery, in the western part of the town of Arras. The memorial commemorates 35,942 soldiers of the forces of the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand, with no known grave, who died in the Arras sector between the spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918.
The major battle in this area during this period was the Battle of Arras. The cut-off date of 7 August 1918 signifies the start of the Advance to Victory, and casualties after that date are listed on other memorials. Also not included here are the names of the missing dead among Canadian and Australian servicemen, who are instead listed at the Vimy Memorial and the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial.
Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the memorial includes sculpture by Sir William Reid Dick. Located in the same cemetery is the Arras Flying Services Memorial (commemorating 991 airmen with no known grave).
Both memorials were unveiled by Lord Trenchard on 31 July 1932. Lord Trenchard had served as the commander of Royal Flying Corps in France from 1915 to 1917. In 1918, he briefly served as the first Chief of the Air Staff before taking up command of the Independent Air Force in France. Also present at the unveiling ceremony was Richard Bell-Davies, British First World War fighter pilot and Royal Navy officer, and recipient of the Victoria Cross. [2]
Those listed on this memorial include poet T.P. Cameron Wilson and the following sportsmen: Isaac Bentham, Dick Harker, Walter Tull, Sandy Turnbull, James Williams, and Cecil Bodington. There are a total of 13 recipients of the Victoria Cross commemorated on the Arras Memorial or the Arras Flying Services Memorial: Ernest Frederick Beal, Bernard Matthew Cassidy, Alexander Edwards, John Erskine, John Harrison, Lanoe George Hawker, David Philip Hirsch, Basil Arthur Horsfall, George Jarratt, Richard Basil Brandram Jones, Edward Mannock, Oliver Cyril Spencer Watson, Albert White. [3]
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations military service members who died in the two World Wars. The commission is also responsible for commemorating Commonwealth civilians who died as a result of enemy action during the Second World War. The commission was founded by Sir Fabian Ware and constituted through Royal Charter in 1917 as the Imperial War Graves Commission. The change to the present name took place in 1960.
Second Lieutenant Basil Arthur Horsfall, VC was a British-Ceylonese recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is a war memorial to 72,337 missing British and South African servicemen who died in the Battles of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 and 1918, with no known grave. It is near the village of Thiepval, Picardy in France. A visitors' centre opened in 2004. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Thiepval has been described as "the greatest executed British work of monumental architecture of the twentieth century".
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is a war memorial site in France dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for Canadian soldiers of the First World War killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave. The monument is the centrepiece of a 100-hectare (250-acre) preserved battlefield park that encompasses a portion of the ground over which the Canadian Corps made their assault during the initial Battle of Vimy Ridge offensive of the Battle of Arras.
Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) burial ground for the dead of the First World War in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. It is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world, for any war. The cemetery and its surrounding memorial are located outside Passendale, near Zonnebeke in Belgium.
The Dury Memorial is a World War I Canadian war memorial that commemorates the actions of the Canadian Corps in the Second Battle of Arras, particularly their breakthrough at the Drocourt–Quéant Line switch of the Hindenburg Line just south of the town of Dury, Pas-de-Calais, France.
The Cambrai Memorial to the Missing is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) memorial for the missing soldiers of World War I who fought in the Battle of Cambrai on the Western Front.
The Loos Memorial is a World War I memorial forming the sides and rear of Dud Corner Cemetery, located near the commune of Loos-en-Gohelle, in the Pas-de-Calais département of France. The memorial lists 20,610 names of British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave who were killed in the area during and after the Battle of Loos, which started on 25 September 1915. This memorial covers the same sector of the front as the Le Touret Memorial, with each memorial commemorating the dead either side of the date of the start of the Battle of Loos.
The Royal Air Force Memorial is a military memorial on the Victoria Embankment in central London, dedicated to the memory of the casualties of the Royal Air Force in World War I. Unveiled in 1923, it became a Grade II listed structure in 1958, and was upgraded to Grade II* in 2018. It is considered to be the official memorial of the RAF and related services.
The British grave of the Unknown Warrior holds an unidentified member of the British armed forces killed on a European battlefield during the First World War. He was given a state funeral and buried in Westminster Abbey, London on 11 November 1920, simultaneously with a similar interment of a French unknown soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in France, making both graves the first examples of a tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the first to honour the unknown dead of the First World War.
The Neuve-Chapelle Indian Memorial is a World War I memorial in France, located on the outskirts of the commune of Neuve-Chapelle, in the département of Pas-de-Calais. The memorial commemorates some 4,742 Indian soldiers with no known grave, who fell in battle while fighting for the British Indian Army in the First World War. The location of the memorial was chosen because of the participation by Indian troops at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.
The Pozières Memorial is a World War I memorial, located near the commune of Pozières, in the Somme department of France, and unveiled in August 1930. It lists the names of 14,657 British and South African soldiers of the Fifth and Fourth Armies with no known grave who were killed between 21 March 1918 and 7 August 1918, during the German advance known as the Spring Offensive, and the period of Allied consolidation and recovery that followed. The final date is determined by the start of the period known as the Advance to Victory on 8 August.
The Delville Wood South African National Memorial is a World War I memorial, located in Delville Wood, near the commune of Longueval, in the Somme department of France. It is opposite the Delville Wood Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery, on the other side of the Longueval–Ginchy road.
The Arras Flying Services Memorial Commonwealth War Graves Commission war memorial in the Faubourg d'Amiens Cemetery, Arras, France. The memorial commemorates nearly 1,000 airmen from forces of the Commonwealth who were killed on the Western Front during World War I and who have no known grave. The memorial was designed by Edwin Lutyens, sculpted by William Reid Dick and unveiled by Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard, Marshal of the Royal Air Force on 31 July 1932.
Between 1923 and 1936, the Imperial War Graves Commission erected a series of memorial tablets in French and Belgian cathedrals to commemorate the British Empire dead of the First World War. The tablets were erected in towns in which British Army or Empire troops had been quartered.
Richmond Cemetery is a cemetery on Lower Grove Road in Richmond in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. The cemetery opened in 1786 on a plot of land granted by an Act of Parliament the previous year. The cemetery has been expanded several times and now occupies a 15-acre (6-hectare) site which, prior to the expansion of London, was a rural area of Surrey. It is bounded to the east by Richmond Park and to the north by East Sheen Cemetery, with which it is now contiguous and whose chapel is used for services by both cemeteries. Richmond cemetery originally contained two chapels—one Anglican and one Nonconformist—both built in the Gothic revival style, but both are now privately owned and the Nonconformist chapel today falls outside the cemetery walls after a redrawing of its boundaries.
The Dunkirk Memorial is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorial to the missing that commemorates 4,505 missing dead of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), most of whom fell prior to and during the Battle of Dunkirk in 1939 and 1940, in the fall of France during the Second World War.
The Doiran Memorial is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission war memorial that is both a battlefield memorial and a memorial to the missing. It honours the dead of the British Salonika Force as well as commemorating by name the 2171 missing dead of that force who fell in fighting on the Macedonian front during the First World War in the period 1915–1918.