Canadian Cemetery No. 2 in Neuville-Saint-Vaast, Nord-Pas-de-Calais

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Get directions Neuville-Saint-Vaast, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France

Coordinates: 50.37762, 2.76348
Cemetery ID:

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Neuville-St. Vaast is a village about 6 kilometres north of Arras and 1 kilometre east of the main road from Arras to Bethune. The Cemetery is within the Canadian National Vimy Memorial Park, which is north of Neuville-St. Vaast. The main entrance to the Park is signposted from the Arras to Lens road (N17).

The cemetery was originally named C.D.5 and established as a battlefield cemetery of the Canadian 4th Division for troops killed in the storming of Vimy Ridge on 9 April 1917 or who died later of wounds sustained there. Battlefield clearances of the surrounding area in 1919 significantly increased the size of the cemetery. The cemetery was again reopened for burials in 1931 and received its last Canadian burial in 1947.

The cemetery covers an area of 10,869 square metres and is enclosed by low walls of coursed stone. There are nearly 3000 World War I casualties commemorated at this site. 29 Canadian soldiers buried at the time in the 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade Cemetery, Givenchy-en Gohelle, and the Canadian cemetery near Gunner's Crater, also at Givenchy-en-Gohelle, but whose graves are now lost, are commemorated by special memorial headstones inscribed to this effect with the additional quotation, "Their Glory shall not be blotted out."