CWGC Cemetery: LA CHAUDIERE MILITARY CEMETERY, VIMY

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Local Information

La Chaudiere Military Cemetery is approximately 3 kilometres south of Lens and is situated on the north-western outskirts of Vimy.

Historical Information

Vimy Ridge was taken by the Canadian Corps in April 1917 in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, although the 25th and 47th (London) Divisions had also been involved in heavy fighting there in May 1916. The cemetery was made at the foot of the ridge, on the north-eastern side, next to a house which had contained a camouflaged German gun position. It remained very small until the summer of 1919, when graves were brought in from many other small cemeteries and isolated sites (some of these from the 1916 fighting) on or near the ridge. At this time, the cemetery was known as Vimy Canadian Cemetery No 1. There are now 906 servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 314 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to a number of casualties known to be buried among them. Other special memorials commemorate men whose graves in some of the concentrated cemeteries had been destroyed in subsequent fighting. The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker.