Friends of the Somme - Mid Ulster Branch
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Location
Region : Lillers, Pas-de-Calais, France
Latitude : 50.56871
Lontitude : 2.47840
CWGC Link : 2102870
Lillers is a small town about 15 kilometres west-north-west of Bethune and the Communal Cemetery and Extension lie to the north of the town. From the Mairie in the centre of the town, head north on the D182, after 500 metres turn right onto Rue St Venant. The cemetery is a further 200 metres on the left hand side. Within the Communal Cemetery the Commonwealth war graves are situated on the right hand side half way up the cemetery central path, and the Extension is at the far right end of the Communal Cemetery. Both cemeteries are signposted.

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Cookstown Casualties
No     Rank Name Service No Regiment / Service Date Of Death Grave Ref
1 Portrait Portrait Pte. Lawn, Michael 4064 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 17/05/1915 Grave 3-A-44
Cemetery History
Lillers was used for billets and headquarter offices from the autumn of 1914 to April 1918. At that time it was a hospital centre with the 6th, 9th, 18th, 32nd, 49th and 58th Casualty Clearing Stations in the town at one time or another. These units buried their dead on the right of the central path of the communal cemetery, working back from Plot I.
In April 1918, the Germans advanced as far as Robecq; Lillers came under shell-fire, and the units holding this front continued to bury beyond the cemetery boundary, in the extension.
The COMMUNAL CEMETERY contains 894 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 67 of which are unidentified. There are also 15 German graves in the Commonwealth plots. The EXTENSION contains 71 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, six of them unidentified.
Cemetery Links
No Link Reference Doc
1 Findagrave.com Gravestone photos
2 War Graves Photo Project War Graves Photographic Project
3 WWI Cemeteries Details of cemetery including some grave photos