CATERPILLAR VALLEY CEMETERY
Longueval
Somme
France
General Directions: Longueval is a village approximately 13 kilometres east of Albert and 10 kilometres south of Bapaume. Caterpillar Valley Cemetery lies a short distance west of Longueval on the south side of the road to Contalmaison.
Caterpillar Valley was the name given by the army to the long valley which rises eastwards, past "Caterpillar Wood", to the high ground at Guillemont. The ground was captured, after very fierce fighting, in the latter part of July 1916. It was lost in the German advance of March 1918 and recovered by the 38th (Welsh) Division on 28 August 1918, when a little cemetery was made (now Plot 1 of this cemetery) containing 25 graves of the 38th Division and the 6th Dragoon Guards. After the Armistice, this cemetery was hugely increased when the graves of more than 5,500 officers and men were brought in from other small cemeteries, and the battlefields of the Somme. The great majority of these soldiers died in the autumn of 1916 and almost all the rest in August or September 1918. On the east side of the cemetery is the Caterpillar Valley (New Zealand) Memorial, commemorating more than 1,200 officers and men of the New Zealand Division who died in the Battles of the Somme in 1916, and whose graves are not known.
Casualty Details: UK 5229, Canada 8, Australia 100, New Zealand 214, South Africa 18, Total Burials: 5569
Second Lieutenant
Arthur William King
17th Bn. London Regiment
15/09/1916, aged 23.
Son of Isaac and Louisa M. King, of 14, Forest Drive West, Leytonstone, London. Enlisted 1914.
Plot VI. G. 32.
Picture courtesy of Russell Gore
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