Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner, Pas de Calais, France

GUARDS CEMETERY, WINDY CORNER

Cuinchy

Pas De Calais

France

GPS Coordinates: Latitude: 50.5288, Longitude: 2.74165

Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner Roll of honour A - L

Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner Roll of honour M - Z

Location Information

Cuinchy is a village about 7 kms east of the town of Bethune and north of the N41 which runs between Bethune and La Bassee. About 1 km north-west of the village are cross roads known as Windy Corner, and Guards Cemetery is a little west of these cross roads.

Historical Information

A little west of the crossroads known to the army as 'Windy Corner' was a house used as a battalion headquarters and dressing station. The cemetery grew up beside this house.

The original cemetery is now Plots I and II and Rows A to S of Plot III. It was begun by the 2nd Division in January 1915, and used extensively by the 4th (Guards) Brigade in and after February. It was closed at the end of May 1916, when it contained 681 graves. After the Armistice it was increased when more than 2,700 graves were brought in from the neighbouring battlefields - in particular the battlefields of Neuve-Chapelle, the Aubers Ridge and Festubert - and from certain smaller cemeteries, including:-

BALUCHI ROAD CEMETERY, NEUVE-CHAPELLE, on the road from Pont-Logy to the "Moated Grange". It contained the graves of fifteen soldiers from the United Kingdom who fell in the winter of 1914-15.

EDWARD ROAD CEMETERY No.3, RICHEBOURG-L'AVOUE, on the South side of the Rue des Berceaux, near another "Windy Corner" (Plot I only, which contained the graves of five men of the 1st East Surreys who fell in October 1914).

INDIAN VILLAGE NORTH CEMETERY, FESTUBERT, near the intersection of "Prince's Road" and the front line of early 1915. It contained the graves of fifteen soldiers from the United Kingdom who fell in May and July 1915.

LORGIES COMMUNAL CEMETERY, which contained two British graves of October 1918.

PONT-FIXE SOUTH CEMETERY, CUINCHY, on the West side of "Harley Street" (the road going South from Windy Corner), a little South of the Canal. This was a row of graves stretching Westward behind houses, and contained the bodies of 42 soldiers from the United Kingdom who fell in 1915.

Guards Cemetery now contains 3,445 burials and commemorations of the First World War. 2,198 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 37 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials commemorate six casualties buried in Indian Village North Cemetery, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire, and five Indian soldiers originally buried in the Guards Cemetery but afterwards cremated in accordance with the requirements of their faith.

Total Burials: 3,445.

World War One Identified Casualties: United Kingdom 1,207, Canada 31, India 9. Total 1,247.

World War One Unidentified Casualties: 2,198.

The cemetery was designed by Charles Holden and Captain Wilfred Clement Von Berg. MC.

Major, John MacKenzie, V. C. & D. C. M.
1st Bn. attached to 2nd Bn. Bedfordshire Regiment
Died on 17th May 1915, aged 44.
Plot VIII. J. 10.

Native of Contin, Ross-shire.

His headstone bears the following inscription; "Blessed Are They That Die In The Lord." (Revelation 14:13)

Citation: An extract taken from the London Gazette dated 15th Jan., 1901 records the following: "On the 6th June, 1900, at Dompoassi, in Ashanti, Sergeant Mackenzie, after working two Maxim guns under a hot fire, and being wounded while doing so, volunteered to clear the stockades of the enemy which he did in the most gallant manner, leading the charge himself and driving the enemy headlong into the bush."

Headstone

Original grave at Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner of 13215 Private, Frederick John Bush Parker, 3rd Bn. Coldstream Guards, 8th August 1915, aged 18. Son of the Rev. F. Talbot Parker and Mrs. Parker, of Knowle Vicarage, 217, Wells Rd., Bristol. He is now buried in plot I. A. 3. © Jeremy Gordon-Smith