Arras Memorial | South Lincolnshire War Memorials

CWGC – History Information

The memorial was unveiled on 31 July 1932 by Lord Trenchard, who served as the commander of the Royal Flying Corps in France from 1915 to 1917.

The ceremony had been scheduled for 15 May but was postponed as a mark of respect due to the sudden death of French President Paul Doumer.

The 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-Bretonneux. A separate memorial remembers those killed in the Battle of Cambrai in 1917.

The adjacent Arras Flying Services Memorial commemorates almost 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.

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.

During the Second World War, Arras was occupied by British 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.

Source © Commonwealth War Graves Commission – Arras Memorial