CUINCHY GUARDS WINDY CORNER CEMETERY

CUINCHY – Guards WINDY CORNER CEMETERY,

Cuinchy, Nord, France

Cuinchy is a village about 7 kms east of the town of Bethune and north of the N41 which runs between Bethune and La Bassee. About 1 km north-west of the village are cross roads known as Windy Corner, and Guards Cemetery is a little west of these cross roads.

A little west of the crossroads known to the army as 'Windy Corner' was a house used as a battalion headquarters and dressing station. The cemetery grew up beside this house. The original cemetery is now Plots I and II and Rows A to S of Plot III. It was begun by the 2nd Division in January 1915, and used extensively by the 4th (Guards) Brigade in and after February. It was closed at the end of May 1916, when it contained 681 graves. After the Armistice it was increased when more than 2,700 graves were brought in from the neighbouring battlefields - in particular the battlefields of Neuve-Chapelle, the Aubers Ridge and Festubert - and from small cemeteries. Guards Cemetery now contains 3,443 burials and commemorations of the First World War. 2,197 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 36 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials commemorate six casualties buried in Indian Village North Cemetery, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire, and five Indian soldiers originally buried in the Guards Cemetery but afterwards cremated in accordance with the requirements of their faith. The cemetery was designed by Charles Holden.

No. of Identified Casualties: 1246 Courtesy of the Commonwealth Wargraves Commission

GUARDS CEMETERY, WINDY CORNER, CUINCHY

L/Cpl SD/3080 William Richard COOPER