VADENCOURT BRITISH CEMETERY

Maissemy

Aisne

France 

General Directions: Maissemy is a village about 5 kilometres north-west of St.Quentin and about two kilometres north of the small town of Vermand. Vadencourt British Cemetery lies to the north of Maissemy and is on the west side of the road from Vermand to Bellenglise.

Maissemy passed into British hands in 1917. It was captured by the enemy on the 21st March, 1918, in spite of a strong resistance by the 24th Division and the 2/4th Royal Berks, and retaken by the 1st Division on the following 15th September. At the beginning of October, the IX Corps Main Dressing Station was at Vadencourt. Vadencourt British Cemetery (called at first Vadencourt New British Cemetery) was begun in August, 1917, by fighting units, and used until March, 1918; and in October and November, 1918, it was used by the 5th, 47th and 61st Casualty Clearing Stations (at Bihecourt, on the road to Vermand) as well as by Field Ambulances. These original graves are in Plots I-III; and after the Armistice those plots were enlarged, and Plots IV and V made, by the concentration of graves from the surrounding battlefields and from a few small burial grounds. These scattered graves were mainly of April, 1917, and March, April, September and October, 1918, and many of them represented casualties of the 59th (North Midland) Division. At the same time 4 French, 31 American and 28 German Graves, all of October, 1918, were removed to other cemeteries.

The cemeteries from which British graves were removed to Vadencourt British Cemetery included these two: Vadencourt Chateau Cemetery, a little further West, in which nine soldiers from the United Kingdom and six from Canada were buried in April-August, 1917. Vendelles Churchyard Extension, made by the 59th Division in April, 1917, and containing the graves of 36 soldiers from the United Kingdom. 

Victoria Cross: Lieutenant Colonel, John Henry Stephen Dimmer, VC, MC, King's Royal Rifle Corps, attd. 2nd/4th Bn. Royal Berkshire Regiment, killed in action 21/03/1918, plot II. B. 46.

Casualty Details: UK 735, Canada 7, Australia 11, India 7, Total Burials: 760

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