Guards' Cemetery, Lesboeufs

Lesboeufs was attacked by the Guards Division on 15 September 1916 and captured by them on the 25th. It was lost on 24 March 1918 during the great German offensive, after a stubborn resistance by part of the 63rd Bn. Machine Gun Corps, and recaptured on 29 August by the 10th Bn. South Wales Borderers. At the time of the Armistice, the cemetery consisted of only 40 graves (now Plot I), mainly those of officers and men of the 2nd Grenadier Guards who died on 25 September 1916, but it was very greatly increased when graves were brought in from the battlefields and small cemeteries round Lesboeufs. There are now 3,136 casualties of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 1,643 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 83 soldiers known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of five casualties buried in Ginchy A.D.S. Cemetery, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire, and three officers of the 2nd Bn. Coldstream Guards, killed in action on 26 September 1916 and known to have been buried together by the roadside near Lesboefs, whose grave could not later be located. The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker. The more considerable burial grounds concentrated into this cemetery were the following:- FLERS DRESSING STATION CEMETERY, GINCHY, between Delville Wood and Flers, containing the graves of 33 soldiers from Australia and eight from the United Kingdom who fell in September, 1916-March, 1917. FLERS ROAD CEMETERY, FLERS, on the Flers-Longueval road, containing the graves of 17 soldiers from the United Kingdom, three from New Zealand and one from Australia, who fell in October, 1916. GINCHY A.D.S. CEMETERY, on the North side of Ginchy village. This was a Field Ambulance cemetery, used from November, 1916 TO March, 1917, and containing the graves of 77 soldiers from the United Kingdom and one from Australia. GINCHY R.F.A. CEMETERY, between Ginchy and Flers, containing the graves of 16 Artillerymen from the United Kingdom and five from Australia who fell in October, 1916-February, 1917. GUARDS' BURIAL GROUND, GINCHY, on the East side of the village, containing the graves of 21 officers and men of the Guards Division who fell on the 15th September, 1916. NEEDLE DUMP CEMETERY, LESBOEUFS, on the road to Flers, containing the graves of 23 soldiers from Australia and four from the United Kingdom who fell in October, 1916-March, 1917. NEEDLE DUMP SOUTH CEMETERY, LESBOEUFS, about 50 yards South of Needle Dump Cemetery, containing the graves of 14 soldiers from Australia and nine from the United Kingdom who fell in October, 1916-March, 1917. SWITCH TRENCH CEMETERY, FLERS, a little East of the Flers-Longueval road, containing 110 (mainly Australian) graves of 1916-17. On the site of another part of Switch Trench, further West, the New Zealand Government have erected one of their two Battlefield Memorials in France. WINDMILL TRENCH CEMETERY, LESBOEUFS, on the road leading North from Lesboeufs. It was used from September, 1916 to March, 1917, and it contained the graves of 27 soldiers from the United Kingdom and 16 from Australia.