Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2 Hebuterne

This article looks at the Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2 near the village of Hebuterne. It is one of a series of articles I’ve written on the cemeteries and memorials of the Somme. In addition, I have created a series of guides to help you research those who served in the British Army during the First World War:

Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2, Hebuterne

Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2 Hebuterne

The Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2 contains the graves of over 1300 British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the area during the First World War. During battlefield clearances in the area in 1917, four Gommecourt British cemeteries were created numbered one to four. Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2 was used to concentrate burials from the other three cemeteries. After the Armistice, battlefield burials were also concentrated in the cemetery. Of the 1,357 burials, 682 are to men who are unidentified and there are also thirty-three special memorials to soldiers known to be buried in the Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2. Over 200 of the identified burials died on 1 July 1916 and Gommecourt Park which was one of the objectives is the wood on the left-hand side of the photograph below.Headstones in the Frederick Montague Leslie Matthews Gommecourt No.2 Cemetery

Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2 is located between the villages of Gommecourt and Heburterne and is eleven miles north of Albert. The cemetery is set slightly back from the road and there is space to park if you’re coming by car. There are eight steps leading up to the grass path but also a grass ramp. The cemetery is signposted and not difficult to find. The map extract below was taken from Sheet 57D N.E. with trenches corrected to 16 May 1916. The black dot marks the location of Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2. The red lines show the German trenches and wire. On the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, the 56th (1st London) and 46th (North Midland) Divisions unsuccessfully attacked the Gommecourt Salient. The 56th Division attacked the German line in the vicinity of the cemetery with the 1/12th (County of London) Battalion (The Rangers) attacking across the ground later used for the cemetery. Many of those killed in the attack are buried in Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2. Each side of a small square is 500 yards (457 metres).

Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2 Location on a Trench Map

One of the soldiers buried in the cemetery is Private Frederick Montague Leslie Matthews who was killed in action serving with the London Rifle Brigade on 1 July 1916 aged nineteen. Frederick had joined the London Rifle Brigade, its full title was the 5th (City of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (London Rifle Brigade) on 6 August 1914. The London Rifle Brigade was part of the Territorial Force, the forerunner of the Territorial Army. It was one of the more exclusive units of the Territorial Force pre-war, with each man paying a subscription fee and having to be from the right social background. Frederick had attended Framlingham College and in the 1911 Census, his father’s occupation was recorded as “Steward of Lord Cadogan”. Frederick landed in France with the London Rifle Brigade on 4 November 1914 and served with the unit on the Western Front until his death, apart from a brief period attached to the 169th Machine Gun Company between April and June 1916. An Operational Order in the unit’s war diary recorded that “the Battalion will assault and take Fir, Eel, Maze and Eck (excluding Emst and Cemetery)”. These trenches were next to Gommecourt Park which is shown on the trench map with Fir Trench running directly in front of the wood. The attack was a disaster, with the unit moving into the trenches with a strength of  23 officers and 803 other ranks. Of these men, 19 officers and 569 other ranks became casualties, 69% of the attacking force. Frederick was initially reported as missing in the attack and later confirmed killed. His body was later recovered from the battlefield and buried in Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2.

The photograph below shows a shrapnel ball which has rolled out of a field into the road leading to the Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2. I picked up half a dozen shrapnel balls in a short walk. You’ll find pieces of shrapnel rusting away in the fields around the cemetery.Shrapnel Ball outside Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2 Hebuterne