A.I.F. Burial Ground, Flers, Somme, France

A. I. F. BURIAL GROUND

Flers

Somme

France

GPS: 2.83140,50.06019

General Directions: A.I.F. Burial Ground is 2 kilometres north of the village of Flers, in the Department of the Somme. Travel south-west of Bapaume on the D929 in the direction of Albert for 6 kilometres to the village of Le Sars. Turn left eastwards on the D11 in the direction of Geudecourt for 3.5 kilometres to the D74/D197 junction. Continue along the D74 in the direction of Geudecourt for 500 metres when a CWGC signpost will be seen indicating the A.I.F. Burial Ground along a track to the right.

Flers was captured on 15 September 1916, in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, when it was entered by the New Zealand and 41st Divisions behind tanks, the innovative new weapons that were used here for the first time. The village was lost during the German advance of March 1918 and retaken at the end of the following August by the 10th Bn. West Yorkshire regiment and the 6th Dorset's of the 17th Division. The cemetery was begun by Australian medical units, posted in the neighbouring caves, in November 1916-February 1917. These original graves are in Plot I, Rows A and B. It was very greatly enlarged after the Armistice when almost 4,000 Commonwealth and French graves were brought in from the battlefields of the Somme, and later from a wider area. The great majority of these graves date from the autumn of 1916, but one is from 1914, and others from the spring of 1917 and the spring and summer of 1918.

Victoria Cross: Serjeant Harold Jackson, VC, C Company, 7th Bn. East Yorkshire Regiment, killed in action on 24/08/1918 and buried in plot XV. A. 21/30.

Casualty Details: UK 2815, Canada 67, Australia 417, New Zealand 89, South Africa 27, Unidentified 60, Germany3, France 164, Total Burials: 3580

Plan of the cemetery