Page last updated 31/05/07
Debt of Honour Register
In Memory of
PETER WILLIAM SWINDLE
Private
26109
7th Bn., Border Regiment
who died on
Monday 23 April 1917 .
| Cemetery: |
ARRAS MEMORIALPas de Calais, France |
| Grave or Reference Panel Number: |
Bay 6 |
| Location: |
The Arras Memorial is in the
Faubourg-d'Amiens Cemetery, which is in the Boulevard du General de Gaulle
in the western part of the town of Arras. The cemetery is near the
Citadel, approximately 2 kilometres due west of the railway station. |
| Visiting Information: |
The Panel Numbers quoted at the end of each
entry relate to the panels dedicated to the Regiment served with. In some
instances where a casualty is recorded as attached to another Regiment,
his name may alternatively appear within their Regimental Panels. Please
refer to the on-site Memorial Register Introduction to determine the
alternative panel numbers if you do not find the name within the quoted
Panels. |
| Historical Information: |
The French handed over Arras to
Commonwealth forces in the spring of 1916 and the system of tunnels upon
which the town is built were used and developed in preparation for the
major offensive planned for April 1917. The Commonwealth section of the
FAUBOURG D'AMIENS CEMETERY was begun in March 1916, behind the French
military cemetery established earlier. It continued to be used by field
ambulances and fighting units until November 1918. The cemetery was
enlarged after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the
battlefields and from two smaller cemeteries in the vicinity. The cemetery
contains 2,651 Commonwealth burials of the First World War. In addition,
there are 30 war graves of other nationalities, most of them German. The
graves in the French military cemetery were removed after the war to other
burial grounds and the land they had occupied was used for the
construction of the Arras Memorial and Arras Flying Services Memorial. The
ARRAS MEMORIAL commemorates almost 35,000 servicemen from the United
Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand who died in the Arras sector between
the spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918, the eve of the Advance to Victory,
and have no known grave. The most conspicuous events of this period were
the Arras offensive of April-May 1917, and the German attack in the spring
of 1918. Canadian and Australian servicemen killed in these operations are
commemorated by memorials at Vimy and Villers-Bertonneux. A separate
memorial remembers those killed in the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. The
ARRAS FLYING SERVICES MEMORIAL commemorates more than 1,000 airmen of the
Royal Naval Air Service, the Royal Flying Corps, and the Royal Air Force,
either by attachment from other arms of the forces of the Commonwealth or
by original enlistment, who were killed on the whole Western Front and who
have no known grave. During the Second World War, Arras was occupied by
United Kingdom forces headquarters until the town was evacuated on 23 May
1940. Arras then remained in German hands until retaken by Commonwealth
and Free French forces on 1 September 1944. The cemetery contains seven
Commonwealth burials of the Second World War. Both cemetery and memorial
were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, with sculpture by Sir William Reid
Dick. |
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