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Jo’s Monday Walk
Week-26
Serre Road Cemetery No-2
Part 2
If you wish to read the first Serre Road Cemetery post click here.
I have deliberately left this first image…
at the top of my post as it contains much of the information,
and more, about Serre Road Cemetery No.2.
Serre Road Cemetery is now the resting place
of over 7,100 serviceman…
of which nearly 5,000 are unidentified…
and have inscribed on their headstone
A Soldier of The Great War
with Rudyard Kipling’s line
Known Unto God
where the family inscription should be,
at the base.
These headstones appear discoloured,
This occurred because the sun ‘beat’ me
and overexposed the image.
The only way to read the text was to darken the image.
You may have noticed that the headstones on previous image,
above and below are closer together
than the rest of the graves.
This layout indicates that all these soldiers died on the same day.
If you did not notice, the two dark headstones
are the resting of place of soldiers who died
on July, 1, 1916.
Many of those buried here were gathered from
makeshift cemeteries during an armistice
and during 1917 when the British V Corps
began clearing the area and recovering the dead,
many of whom served in the 2nd and 4th divisions
and saw action between
Serre and Beaumont-Hammel
and the nearby Quadrilateral.
After many Somme Cemeteries had closed,
Serre Road No. 2 continued to expand
with the last burials being made in 1934.
Due to the concentration of burials in Serre Road,
soldiers from Australia, Canada, New Zealand
and South Africa were interred here.
Serre Road Cemetery no. 2 is the largest cemetery
on the Somme, and the fourth largest
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
cemetery in France.
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WoollyMuses 