ROCLINCOURT VALLEY CEMETERY
Pas De Calais
France
GPS Coordinates Latitude: 50.33322 Longitude: 2.80449
Location Information
Roclincourt is a village a little to the east of the road from Arras to Lens. Take the N17 from Arras until the junction of this road and the D60. Travel along the D60 into Roclincourt village. Roclincourt Valley Cemetery lies to the north-east of the village. It is on a farm track signposted off the Thelus road.
Visiting Information
Wheelchair access is possible with some difficulty.
Historical Information
Roclincourt was just within the Allied lines before the Battle of Arras in 1917 and it was from here that the 51st (Highland) and 34th Divisions advanced on 9 April 1917. The 1st Canadian Division attacked further north, across the Lens road.
Roclincourt Valley Cemetery (originally called Roclincourt Forward Cemetery No.2) was begun after 9 April 1917 by the units which fought on that day. It was used until the following August when it contained the graves of 94 soldiers, of whom 40 belonged to the 51st Division. These form Plot I, Rows A to E and part of Row F. The cemetery was enlarged after the Armistice when graves, almost all of April 1917 and mostly from the 34th and 51st Divisions, were brought in from the surrounding battlefields and from certain smaller cemeteries, including:-
KING CRATER CEMETERY, ROCLINCOURT: a mine crater, it contained 99 burials in five big graves, made by the 34th Division in the middle of April 1917, all dating from 9 April. All but two belonged to the Tyneside Brigades of the Northumberland Fusiliers.
KITE CRATER CEMETERY, ST LAURENT-BLANGY, contained 53 burials of 9 April 1917 in five big graves, mainly of the 34th Division.
RABS ROAD CEMETERY, ST LAURENT-BLANGY, contained 20 burials of 9 or 13 April 1917, 16 belonging to the 15th or 16th Royal Scots.
ROCLINCOURT LONG CEMETERY (called at one time Roclincourt Forward Cemetery No.3), contained 68 burials of 9 April 1917, all 51st Division.
THELUS ROAD CEMETERY, ROCLINCOURT, was made by the XVII Corps and contained 42 burials of 9 April 1917, 51st Division.
The cemetery now contains 518 burials and commemorations of the First World War. 83 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to four casualties known, or believed, to be buried among them.
Total Burials: 548.
Identified Casualties: United Kingdom 441, South Africa 22, New Zealand 2, Canada 1. Total 466.
Unidentified Casualties: United Kingdom 73, Canada 1, Unknown 9. Total 83.
The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and Noel Ackroyd Rew
Images in this gallery © Werner Van Caneghem
Shot at Dawn
10263 Private, Edward Bolton, 1st Bn. Cheshire Regiment, executed for desertion 14th April 1916, Plot II. F. 7.
A pre-War Regular, he was sent to France in August 1914 & deserted after one month with the BEF. Bolton was recaptured, being tried for Desertion on 11 August 1915. Sentence of death was commuted to 10 years’ Penal Servitude, suspended.
3 months later, he was granted leave to return to England, failed to return & was arrested at Ince in Lancashire where he had been working under the name of Cunningham.
Returned to France for his second trial, he disputed none of the evidence, giving an account of having originally enlisted in the name of Bolton because he had been in trouble (his real name being Cunningham); of his being treated with contempt in the regiment after his first desertion; & of some effort made to join another regiment when he had been in England. Bolton asked for another chance, but in vain. (Corns, p. 230, with an eye-witness account of his execution at p.101)
10263 Private, Edward Bolton, 1st Bn. Cheshire Regiment, executed for desertion 14th April 1916, Plot II. F. 7.
A pre-War Regular, he was sent to France in August 1914 & deserted after one month with the BEF. Bolton was recaptured, being tried for Desertion on 11 August 1915. Sentence of death was commuted to 10 years’ Penal Servitude, suspended.
3 months later, he was granted leave to return to England, failed to return & was arrested at Ince in Lancashire where he had been working under the name of Cunningham.
Returned to France for his second trial, he disputed none of the evidence, giving an account of having originally enlisted in the name of Bolton because he had been in trouble (his real name being Cunningham); of his being treated with contempt in the regiment after his first desertion; & of some effort made to join another regiment when he had been in England. Bolton asked for another chance, but in vain. (Corns, p. 230, with an eye-witness account of his execution at p.101)
Picture © Geerhard Joos
The RAMC officer, attached to the 12th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment (92nd Brigade, 31st Division), bandaging the face wound of a man of his battalion in the line in the Arleux sector, near Roclincourt, 9 January 1918. © IWM (Q 11545)
Images in gallery below © Geerhard Joos
A wiring party of the 12th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment, 31st Division, passing along a communication trench near Roclincourt, January 1918. © IWM (Q 10611)
An officer York and Lancaster Regiment, probably 2/4th Battalion part of 187th Brigade, feeds a puppy outside a reinforced dugout in a trench near Roclincourt, on the 62nd Division front between Oppy and Gavrelle, 13 January, 1918. © IWM (Q 8439)
Image above © Werner Van Caneghem
