Le Trou Aid Post Cemetery
Location
Fleurbaix is a village in the Department of the Pas-de-Calais, five kilometres south-west of Armentières and fourteen kilometres west of Lille. Le Trou is a hamlet of Fleurbaix, south of the village, on the side road, off the D171, known as the Rue-Petillon.
Follow the signs for Fromelles and the Australian Memorial. This cemetery is a hundred metres up a side road on your left. You will see it in the trees. From this direction it is signposted. If you are coming the other way from VC Corner Cemetery and Fromelles you could miss the sign.
| GPS | N | E | OSM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decimal | 50.623739 | 2.826818 | Map |
Historical Information
Le Trou Aid Post was established very early in the war. The cemetery was used between October 1914 and July 1915, and was described in November 1916 as being “a short distance behind the present support line”. At the Armistice, it contained 123 burials.
It was in this area that Brigadier General Pompey Elliott of the Australian 15th Brigade had his Headquarters during the battle of Fromelles — some Generals did indeed place themselves at the front.
To prove this point you will find within the cemetery the grave of Brigadier General Arthur Lowry Cole who was killed during the first attempt to take Fromelles on 9th May 1915.
The cemetery was enlarged when graves were brought in from the battlefields and small cemeteries to the east. La Haute Loge British Cemetery, Le Maisnil was about 400 metres east of the cross roads at Le Maisnil. It contained the graves of 80 officers and men of the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the 1st Middlesex, who fell on 21st October 1914. These units, after holding out against superior forces, were forced to retire on the evening of the 21st and their dead were buried by the enemy on the 22nd.
The graves brought into the cemetery are mainly those of officers and men who died in the fighting at Le Maisnil (21st October 1914), the Battle of Aubers Ridge (9 May 1915), the Battle of Loos (25th September 1915), and the Attack at Fromelles (19-20th July 1916).
There are now 356 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 207 of the burials are unidentified but special memorials commemorate five casualties known or believed to be buried among them. There is also one French war grave.
The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker.
Brigadier General Arthur Lowry Cole
Royal Welsh Fusiliers
Commanding 25th Infantry Brigade
Died on 9th May 1915 aged 54
Son of Colonel Arthur Lowry Cole, CB
and Elizabeth Lowry Cole
Husband of Marion Lowry Cole
of Elm House, Lelant, Cornwall
Served in the Burmah, West African
and South African campaigns
Commandant, Northern Nigeria, 1899-1901.
Grave: E 22
Private M Ellis 895
2nd Bn Middlesex Regiment
Died on 9th May 1915
Grave: CA 2
Serjeant James Geeson 67233
5th Battery 45th Brigade
Royal Field Artillery
Died on 9th May 1915 aged 21
Son of John and Elizabeth Geeson,
of 51 St Mary’s Rd, Doncaster
Mentioned in dispatches
Grave: CA 1
Lance Corporal W Butler 13409
1st Bn Worcestershire Regiment
Died on 10th May 1915 aged 17
Son of Mr C and Mrs J Butler,
of 22, Perowne St, Aldershot
Grave: K 14
Private J Burgess 1846
1/6th Bn West Yorkshire Regiment
Prince of Wales’s Own
Died on 25th May 1915
Grave: N 7