GOMMECOURT BRITISH CEMETERY No. 2
Hebuterne
Pas de Calais
France
General Directions: Gommecourt is a village 19 kilometres south-west of Arras. The Cemetery lies just off the road between Gommecourt and Puisieux (D6). A CWGC signpost indicating the directions to the site is situated at the junction 2 kilometres along this road. Access can also be made from the village of Hebuterne where a CWGC signpost indicates the way from the main square.
Hebuterne village remained in Allied hands from March 1915 to the Armistice, although during the German advances of the summer of 1918, it was practically on the front line. Gommecourt and Gommecourt Wood were attacked by the 56th (London) and 46th (North Midland) Divisions on 1 July 1916 with only temporary success, but the village was occupied by the 31st and 46th Divisions on the night of 27-28 February 1917, remaining in Allied hands until the Armistice. Gommecourt British Cemeteries No.1, No.2, No.3 and No.4 were made in 1917 when the battlefields were cleared. No.2 cemetery originally contained 101 graves of 1 July 1916, almost all of the 56th Division, which form Plot I of the cemetery as it is today. The burials in No.1, No.3 and No.4 were moved into No.2 after the Armistice, along with other graves from the neighbouring battlefields.
Casualty Details: UK 1285, Australia 26, New Zealand 46, Total Burials: 1357
Pictures above (L-R) Lt. Clegg's grave at Gommecourt, Lt. Clegg portrait and Lionel with a group of fellow officers from the H. M. G. C.
Lieutenant
Lionel Clegg
7th Bn. Tank Corps.
22/08/1918, aged 20.
(CWGC shows his age incorrectly as 21)
Son of Mr. and Mrs. S. Clegg, of London; husband of Doris Clegg, of 258, Ivydale Rd., Nunhead, London.
Plot V. G. 15.
killed early in the morning of Aug 22 1918. Although his grave stone says he was 21 he was actually 20. He was killed in Bucquoy, having spent the night with three tanks on the road to Achiet le Petit. They were a little too close to German lines and were called back that morning. They returned under sporadic shelling and as he helped his men cover the tank with corrugated iron as camouflage, a shell landed at his feet and killed him instantly.
He was from Peckham London, and had married two months earlier. He had also fought in Cambrai.
Lionel was originally buried in a single grave in Bucquoy, but was re-interred in Gommecourt No.2 cemetery in 1920.
The above photograph of him would have been around late 1916 or 1917, but early days for him in the Tank Corps as his badge is still that of the Heavy Machine Gun Corps.
Pictures courtesy of great nephew Neil Berrett
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