Bois-Carre British Cemetery, Thelus
- Country France
- Total identified casualties 455 Find these casualties
- Region Pas de Calais
- Identified casualties from First & Second World War
- GPS Coordinates Latitude: 50.35125, Longitude: 2.81085
Location information
Thelus is a village 7 kilometres north of Arras. Bois-Carre British Cemetery is 1 kilometre east of the village on the south side of the D49 road to Bailleul-sire-Berthoult.
Visiting information
PARKING
There is no car park at the cemetery. There is a sloped, gravel path and lay-by at the front of the cemetery with space for several vehicles. The main entrance to the cemetery faces directly onto the main road.
MAIN ENTRANCE AND LAYOUT
The cemetery is enclosed within a mid-level, red brick wall. There is a metal gate at the main entrance, approximately 1100 mm wide. Access through the gate leads into the burial plot. There are several Special Memorials in the cemetery, some of the Special Memorials are located against the back wall. In the far-left side corner of the cemetery is a stone bench.
There is a Cross of Sacrifice positioned in front of the boundary wall, level with the midway point of the cemetery. The Cross of Sacrifice is built on an elevated platform at the top of steps. The cemetery has sloped, firm grassed surfaces. All the paths in the cemetery are grass.
There is a Register Box built into the right-side pillar of the main entrance when viewed from inside the cemetery.
There is a stone bench built into the wall located at the rear of the cemetery opposite the main entrance gate.
ALTERNATIVE ACCESS
There are no alternative access points or entrances into the cemetery.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Bois Carre British Cemetery is permanently open
History information
Thelus village, which stands on the Vimy Ridge, was captured by the Canadian Corps on the 9th April, 1917, and it remained in British hands until the end of the War. The commune contains Battle Memorials of the 1st Canadian Division and (at Les Tilleuls) the Canadian Artillery.
Bois-Carre British Cemetery was begun by units of the 1st Canadian Division in April 1917, and used until the following June. These 61 graves are in Plot I (a Canadian soldier, accidentally killed in 1919, was also buried in Plot I, Row F). The cemetery was greatly enlarged after the Armistice by the concentration of graves from the surrounding battlefields and from following burial grounds:-
BUMBLE TRENCH CEMETERY, VIMY, (CC 186*) on the road from Vimy to Lens before the railway crossing. Here were buried, in May-August, 1917, nineteen Canadian soldiers and five from the United Kingdom.
CANADIAN GRAVE (CD 27*) NEUVILLE-ST. VAAST, 1,828 metres West of Petit-Vimy, in which 48 Canadian soldiers who fell on the 9th April, 1917, were buried; almost all belonged to the 54th and 102nd Battalions.
VIMY STATION CEMETERY, where 17 Canadian soldiers were buried in April and May, 1917.
*The numerous groups of graves made about this time by the Canadian Corps Burial Officer were, as a rule, not named but serially lettered and numbered.
During the 1939-40 War the cemetery was used in April, 1940, by No.8 Casualty Clearing Station.
There are now over 500, 1914-18 and a small number of 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, nearly 60 from the 1914-18 War are unidentified and special memorials are erected to one soldier from the United Kingdom and one from Canada known to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of ten Canadian soldiers and three from the United Kingdom, buried in smaller cemeteries, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire.
The cemetery covers an area of 1,898 square metres and is enclosed by a brick wall.