Roclincourt Valley Cemetery, Pas de Calais

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. The cemetery 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.