Friends of the Somme - Mid Ulster Branch
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Location
Region : Albert, Somme, France
Latitude : 50.034122
Lontitude : 2.715155
CWGC Link : 87600
Pozieres is a village 6 kilometres north-east of the town of Albert. The Memorial encloses Pozieres British Cemetery which is a little south-west of the village on the north side of the main road, D929, from Albert to Pozieres. On the road frontage is an open arcade terminated by small buildings and broken in the middle by the entrance and gates. Along the sides and the back, stone tablets are fixed in the stone rubble walls bearing the names of the dead grouped under their Regiments. It should be added that, although the memorial stands in a cemetery of largely Australian graves, it does not bear any Australian names. The Australian soldiers who fell in France and whose graves are not known are commemorated on the National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.

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Magherafelt Casualties
No     Rank Name Service No Regiment / Service Date Of Death Grave Ref
1 Portrait Portrait 2nd Lieut Houston, Arthur Oswald 15609 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 26/03/1918 Panel 38-40
2 Portrait Pte. Johnston, William 21083 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 21/03/1918 Panel 38-40
3 Portrait Pte. Martin, Leslie 28406 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 22/03/1918 Panel 38-40
4 Portrait L/Corp McIlrath, Robert 21073 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 21/03/1918 Panel 38-40
5 2nd Lieut McKinney, Joseph James Moore Royal Irish Rifles 27/03/1918 Panel 74-76
6 Portrait Pte. O'Neill, Charles 20325 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 21/03/1918 Panel 38-40
7 Portrait 2nd Lieut Paul, David Royal Irish Rifles 21/03/1918 Addenda Panel
8 Portrait Portrait Pte. Rowe, Samuel 19170 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 23/03/1918 Panel 38-40
9 Portrait Portrait L/Corp Shanks M.M., William 15997 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 21/03/1918 Panel 38-40
10 Portrait Pte. Spillane, Samuel 28435 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 22/03/1918 Panel 38-40
Cemetery History
The POZIERES MEMORIAL relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918.
The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918.
the Corps and Regiments most largely represented are :
bullet Rifle Brigade with over 600 names
bullet Durham Light Infantry with approximately 600 names
bullet Machine Gun Corps with over 500
bullet Manchester Regiment with approximately 500
bullet Royal Horse and Royal Field Artillery with over 400 names
The memorial encloses POZIERES BRITISH CEMETERY, Plot II of which contains original burials of 1916, 1917 and 1918, carried out by fighting units and field ambulances.
The remaining plots were made after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields immediately surrounding the cemetery, the majority of them of soldiers who died in the Autumn of 1916 during the latter stages of the Battle of the Somme, but a few represent the fighting in August 1918.
There are now 2,758 Commonwealth servicemen buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 1,380 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 23 casualties known or believed to be buried among them.
There is also 1 German soldier buried here. The cemetery and memorial were designed by W.H. Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien on 4 August 1930.