Bois-Carré British Cemetery
Location
Thélus is a village 7 kilometres north of Arras and Bois-Carré British Cemetery is one kilometre east of the village on the south side of the D49 road to Bailleul-sire-Berthoult.
A short distance away is the monument to the 1st Canadian Division who fought here in April 1917.
| GPS | N | E | OSM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decimal | 50.35125 | 2.810837 | Map |
Historical Information
Thélus village, which stands on the Vimy Ridge, was captured by the Canadian Corps on the 9th April 1917, and it remained in British hands until the end of the War.
The commune contains Battle Memorials of the 1st Canadian Division and (at Les Tilleuls) the Canadian Artillery.
Bois-Carré British Cemetery was begun by units of the 1st Canadian Division in April 1917, and used until the following June, and the 61 graves thus made are in Plot I.
It was greatly enlarged after the Armistice by the concentration of graves from the surrounding battlefields, and a Canadian soldier, accidentally killed in 1919, was buried in Plot I, Row F.
During the 1939-40 War the cemetery was used in April 1940, by No 8 Casualty Clearing Station.
There are now over 500, 1914-18 and a small number of 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, nearly 60 from the 1914-18 War are unidentified and special memorials are erected to one soldier from the United Kingdom and one from Canada known to be buried among them.
Other special memorials record the names of ten Canadian soldiers and three from the United Kingdom, buried in smaller cemeteries, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire. The cemetery covers an area of 1 898 square metres and is enclosed by a brick wall.
The Memorial to Bumble Trench Cemetery
The following were the more considerable burial grounds from which graves were concentrated to this cemetery :
- Bumble Trench Cemetery, Vimy, (CC 186 — groups of graves made about this time by the Canadian Corps Burial Officer were, as a rule, not named but serially lettered and numbered) on the road from Vimy to Lens before the railway crossing. Here were buried, in May-August 1917, nineteen Canadian soldiers and five from the United Kingdom.
- Canadian Grave CD 27 at Neuville St Vaast, 1,828 metres west of Petit-Vimy, in which 48 Canadian soldiers who fell on the 9th April 1917, were buried; almost all belonged to the 54th and 102nd Battalions.
- Vimy Station Cemetery, where 17 Canadian soldiers were buried in April and May 1917.
Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
Died on 9/10th April 1917 aged 18
Son of Mr and Mrs A Millar
of Crawford Bay, British Columbia
Born at Edinburgh, Scotland
Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
Died on 9/10th April 1917
Lieutenant Archie Wagner
Princess Patricia’s
Canadian Light Infantry
Died on 9th April 1917 aged 21
Son of David and Elizabeth Wagner
of 17 Kains St, St Thomas, Ontario
Gazetted 1916
Grave: IV A 5
Like Moses’ Bush
He mounted higher
Flourished unconsumed by fire
Private Chris Metich 769615
Princess Patricia’s
Canadian Light Infantry
Died on 9/10th April 1917 aged 29
Son of Vukana Metich
of Celo Donea Studence, Shrez
Nish, Serbia
Grave: IV A 12
Za otatsbinu i saveznika
Jivos i dao
Private Ernest Oakes 7611229
Royal Army Ordnance Corps
Died on 19th April 1940 aged 33
Son of Edward and Margaret Oakes
of West Gorton, Manchester
Grave: IV C 1
In memory of Ernest
If we forget
Who will remember