Skip to main content

Pas de Calais – Arras Memorial

The Arras 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 7th August 1918 (the eve of the Advance to Victory) and have no known grave.  The names of one man from Wickhamford and one from Badsey are recorded on the Arras Memorial:  Second Lieutenant George Mason, who died on 20th May 1917, and Lance Corporal Horace Albert Halford who died the next day.

The Arras Memorial is in the Faubourg-d’Amiens Cemetery, which is in the Boulevard du General de Gaulle in the western part of the town of Arras.

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.

The most conspicuous events of this period were the Arras offensive of April-May 1917 (when Second Lieutenant Mason and Lance Corporal Halford perished) and the German attack in the spring of 1918.

The memorial was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, with sculpture by Sir William Reid Dick.  The memorial was unveiled by Lord Trenchard, Marshal of the Royal Air Force on 31st July 1932.