Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont-Hamel

Y Ravine Cemetery
Y Ravine Cemetery
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
	Used for those deceased 1914–1918
Established	1917
Location	50°4′34″N2°39′9″E / 50.07611°N 2.65250°E ; near Beaumont-Hamel, France
Total burials	419
Commemorated	53
Burials by nation
	Allied Powers United Kingdom: 328; Newfoundland: 38;
Burials by war
	World War I: 366
	Statistics source: Cemetery details. Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Last updated December 24, 2023

Y Ravine Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of World War I situated on the grounds of Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial Park near the French town of Beaumont-Hamel.

History and Layout

Prior to the Battle of the Somme the Germany Army carved out their front line trench just a few metres in front of a deep, steep-sided ravine which afforded a unique terrain in which they were able to protect and conceal large numbers of infantry in deep underground shelters. It came to be known by its wartime nickname from the two stubby arms which fork out in a 'Y' shape at its eastern end, which were just behind the front line trench of July 1, 1916. From there, the main body of the ravine runs east for about 730 metres to what was "Station Road" (near the modern-day D4151 road).^[1]

During the initial phase of the Battle of the Somme, which would become known as the Battle of Albert, the British British 29th Division, including the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, were tasked with capturing the village of Beaumont-Hamel from trenches in front of the village of Auchonvillers. There, they found themselves in one of the few places on the battlefront where the attackers held the high ground over the German lines and could clearly see the enemy's front line trenches. However, a slight rise just behind the German front line trench concealed the presence of the ravine and the shelters within. Confident that the week-long preparatory artillery barrage would decimate the defenses and defenders within, when the attack was launched on July 1, 1916, unseen German soldiers of the battle-hardened 119th Reserve Regiment emerged from their concealed bombardment-proof dugouts hidden in the ravine and played a key role in brutally repelling the attack. Ironically, the slope down from the British trenches allowed the Germans to identify the paths through the British barbed wire and spot the locations where the British troops would emerge into no man's land, which they trained their machine guns on.^[2]

By the final phase of the battle, the Battle of the Ancre, new trenches and saps had been dug into no man's land to offer the attackers protection as much as 160 metres closer to enemy lines. From these new positions Beaumont-Hamel was again attacked, and with the ravine, was captured by the 51st (Highland) Division on November 13, 1916.^[3]

The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial site, including memorials to the 29th and 51st Divisions within it, commemorate these engagements, and Y Ravine Cemetery is within the park. The cemetery sits about 230 metres south of its namesake, which forms most of the northern boundary of the park.

The cemetery was made by the British V Corps in the spring of 1917, when the surrounding battlefield was cleared of remains. It was called originally "Y Ravine Cemetery No. 1" as a second also existed nearby, but the second was concentrated into Ancre British Cemetery after the Armistice. There are now 419 war casualties interred in the cemetery, 275 of which are identified. Roughly one out of every three are unidentified, likely due to the fact that many bodies remained in no man's land for months between the failed initial attacks in July and the eventual success four months later and were either obliterated by shellfire or had decayed beyond recognition.^[4]

The cemetery, arranged in a cruciform shape, covers an area of 1,166 square metres and is enclosed by a rubble wall.

Commemoration

As is customary in CWGC cemeteries, a special memorial was erected to 53 soldiers from the United Kingdom and eight from Newfoundland who are known or believed to be buried in the cemetery grounds under stones marking Unknown remains.

Related Research Articles

The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies. More than three million men fought in the battle, of whom more than one million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in all of human history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">29th Division (United Kingdom)</span> Military unit

The 29th Division, known as the Incomparable Division, was an infantry division of the British Army, formed in early 1915 by combining various Regular Army units that had been acting as garrisons around the British Empire. Under the command of Major-General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, the division fought throughout the Gallipoli Campaign, including the original landing at Cape Helles. From 1916 to the end of the war the division fought on the Western Front in Belgium and France.

The first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916, was the beginning of the Battle of Albert (1–13 July), the name given by the British to the first two weeks of the 141 days of the Battle of the Somme in the First World War. Nine corps of the French Sixth Army and the British Fourth and Third armies attacked the German 2nd Army from Foucaucourt south of the Somme, northwards across the Somme and the Ancre to Serre and at Gommecourt, 2 mi (3.2 km) beyond, in the Third Army area. The objective of the attack was to capture the German first and second defensive positions from Serre south to the Albert–Bapaume road and the first position from the road south to Foucaucourt.

Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt was a German field fortification, west of the village of Beaumont Hamel on the Somme. The redoubt was built after the end of the Battle of Albert and as French and later British attacks on the Western Front became more formidable, the Germans added fortifications and trench positions near the original lines around Hawthorn Ridge. At 7:20 a.m. on 1 July 1916, the British fired a huge mine beneath the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt. Sprung ten minutes before zero hour, the mine was one of 19 mines detonated on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Geoffrey Malins, one of two official war cameramen, filmed the detonation of the mine. The attack on the redoubt by part of the 29th Division of VIII Corps was a costly failure.

The Battle of the Ancre Heights, is the name given to the continuation of British attacks after the Battle of Thiepval Ridge from 26 to 28 September during the Battle of the Somme. The battle was conducted by the Reserve Army from Courcelette near the Albert–Bapaume road, west to Thiepval on Bazentin Ridge. British possession of the heights would deprive the German 1st Army of observation towards Albert to the south-west and give the British observation north over the Ancre valley to the German positions around Beaumont-Hamel, Serre and Beaucourt. The Reserve Army conducted large attacks on 1, 8, 21, 25 October and from 10 to 11 November.

The Battle of the Ancre(13–18 November 1916), was fought by the British Fifth Army, against the German 1st Army. The Reserve Army had been renamed the Fifth Army on 30 October. The battle was the last of the big British attacks of the Battle of the Somme. After the Battle of Flers–Courcelette the Anglo-French armies tried to press their advantage with smaller attacks in quick succession, rather than pausing to regroup and give the Germans time to recover. Subsequent writers gave discrete dates for the Anglo-French battles but there were considerable overlaps and continuities of operations until the weather and supply difficulties in mid-November ended the battle until the new-year.

Beaumont-Hamel is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.

The Battle of the Boar's Head was an attack on 30 June 1916 at Richebourg-l'Avoué in France, during the First World War. Troops of the 39th Division, XI Corps in the First Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), advanced to capture the Boar's Head, a salient held by the German 6th Army. Two battalions of the 116th Brigade, with one battalion forming carrying parties, attacked the German front position before dawn on 30 June. The British took and held the German front line trench and the second trench for several hours, before retiring to their lines having lost 850–1,366 casualties.

The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial is a memorial site in France dedicated to the commemoration of Dominion of Newfoundland forces members who were killed during World War I. The 74-acre (300,000 m²) preserved battlefield park encompasses the grounds over which the Newfoundland Regiment made their unsuccessful attack on 1 July 1916 during the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

The Capture of Regina Trench was a tactical incident in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme during the First World War. Regina Trench was the Canadian name for a German trench dug along the north-facing slope of a ridge running from north-west of the village of Le Sars, south-westwards to Stuff Redoubt, close to the German fortifications at Thiepval. It was the longest such German trench on the Western Front. Attacked several times by the Canadian Corps during the Battle of the Ancre Heights, the 5th Canadian Brigade of the 2nd Canadian Division briefly controlled a section of the trench on 1 October but was repulsed by counter-attacks of the German Marine Brigade, which had been brought from the Belgian coast. On 8 October, attacks by the 1st Canadian Division and the 3rd Canadian Division on Regina Trench also failed.

The 51st (Highland) Division Memorial at Beaumont-Hamel is a memorial in France commemorating the soldiers of the 51st (Highland) Division killed during World War I. The memorial is located near Y Ravine on the 84-acre (340,000 m²) Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial site. This position had been the scene of the Division's first major victory on 13 November 1916 during the Battle of the Ancre, the closing stage of the Battle of the Somme.

Hunter's Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of World War I situated on the grounds of Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial Park near the French town of Beaumont-Hamel.

Operations on the Ancre took place from 11 January – 13 March 1917, between the British Fifth Army and the German 1st Army, on the Somme front during the First World War. After the Battle of the Ancre, British attacks on the Somme front stopped for the winter. Until early January 1917, both sides were reduced to surviving the rain, snow, fog, mud fields, waterlogged trenches and shell-holes. British preparations for the Battle of Arras, due in the spring of 1917, continued.

On the morning of 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme during World War I, underground explosive charges planted by British tunnelling units were detonated beneath the German front lines. The joint explosion of these mines ranks among the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions.

Serre-lès-Puisieux is a village in the commune of Puisieux in the Pas-de-Calais department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.

The Capture of Beaumont-Hamel was a tactical incident that took place during the Battle of the Somme in the Battle of the Ancre (13–18 November) during the second British attempt to take the village. Beaumont-Hamel is a commune in the Somme department of Picardy in northern France. The village had been attacked on 1 July, the First Day of the Somme. The German 2nd Army defeated the attack, inflicting many British and Newfoundland Regiment casualties.

The Ancre British Cemetery is a cemetery located in the Somme region of France commemorating British and Commonwealth soldiers who fought in the Battle of the Somme in World War I. The cemetery contains mainly those who died on 1 July 1916 during the first Allied attack on the village of Beaumont-Hamel, on 3 September 1916 during the second Allied attack on the village, and on 13 November 1916 during the capture of the village and the nearby towns of Beaucourt-sur-Ancre and St. Pierre-Divion.

The Aveluy Wood Cemetery is a cemetery located in the Somme region of France commemorating British and Commonwealth soldiers who fought in the Battle of the Somme in World War I. The cemetery honors mainly those who died on the front near Aveluy Wood and the village of Aveluy from June 1916 to February 1917 and from April to September 1918.

The Beaumont Hamel British Cemetery is a cemetery located in the Somme region of France commemorating British and Commonwealth soldiers who fought in the Battle of the Somme in World War I. The cemetery contains mainly those who died on 1 July 1916 during the first Allied attack on the village of Beaumont-Hamel and in subsequent operations in the area until February 1917.

References

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[1] ttps://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/2076500/y-ravine-cemetery-beaumont-hamel/

[2] ttps://www.heritage.nf.ca/first-world-war/articles/beaumont-hamel-en.php

[3] ttp://johnsmilitaryhistory.com/Newfoundland.html

[4] ttps://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/2076500/y-ravine-cemetery-beaumont-hamel/

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