AIF BURIAL GROUND, FLERS

AIF Burial Ground is 2 kilometers north of the village of Flers, in the Department of the Somme. Travel south-west of Bapaume on the D929 in the direction of Albert for 6 kilometers to the village of Le Sars. Turn left eastwards on the D11 in the direction of Guedecourt for 3.5 kilometers to the D74/D197 junction. Continue along the D74 in the direction of Guedecourt for 500 meters when a CWGC signpost will be seen indicating the AIF Burial Ground along a track to the right.

Flers was captured on the 15th September 1916, in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette; it was entered by the New Zealand and 41st Divisions, following the newly-revealed Tanks. It was lost in March 1918, and retaken at the end of the following August. The cemetery was begun by Australian medical units, posted in the neighbouring caves, in November  1916 - February 1917; and these original graves are in Plot I, Rows A and B. It was very greatly enlarged after the Armistice by the concentration of 3,842 British and French graves from the battlefields of the Somme, and afterwards from a wider area; the great majority of these graves date from the autumn of 1916, but one is of 1914, and others of the spring of 1917 and the spring and summer of 1918. 

The following were among the burial grounds from which British graves were taken to this cemetery:- 

FACTORY CORNER, FLERS, a little West of the crossing of the roads from Eaucourt-L'Abbaye to Gueudecourt and from Flers to Ligny-Thilloy. This place, which had been a German Headquarters for Artillery and Engineers and had a German Cemetery, was taken by the 1st Canterbury Infantry Regiment on the 25th September 1916, and again by the 7th East Yorks on the 27th August 1918. Fifteen soldiers from the United Kingdom and 13 from Australia were buried here in October 1916 - March 1917, and in August 1918. 
NORTH ROAD CEMETERY, FLERS, North-West of the village, at the crossing of the Eaucourt-L'Abbaye road with "North Road" (to Factory Corner). Here were buried, in the winter of 1916-17, 13 Australian soldiers and seven from the United Kingdom.

Further Information

Among those buried here are:

DUNCOMBE, Lieutenant Colpnel Charles William Reginald. Yorkshire Hussars. Commanding 21st Bn Kings Royal Rifle Corps (Yeoman's Rifles). Died 15th Sept 1916, age 37. 2nd Earl of Feversham. Son of William Reginald Duncombe, Viscount Helmsley, elder son of 1st Earl of Feversham; husband of Countess of Feversham (now Lady Marjorie Beckett, of Kirkdale Manor, Nawton, Yorks). He was originally buried in a field near Flers, close to the spot where he fell; the grave was moved here in the 1950s. (III.L.29)