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Whitby High School
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A.C. 38th, Machine Gun Corps (Inf)
died
02 September 1918
It was here where we came to trace another of Lauren Worthington's ancestors - Lance Corporal H.W. Mason. Again, the preliminary research had already been carried out and with the help of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records, we knew which cemetery to come to. Lauren headed for the small door set into the gate arch, where she located the cemetery index, plan and visitors book. She was looking for reference IV. ZZ. 9 (see plan), which was near the perimeter wall to the east side.
Lesboeufs is a village 16 kilometres north-east of Albert. It was attacked by the Guards Division on 15 September 1916 and captured by them on the 25th. It was lost on 24 March 1918 during the great German offensive, after a stubborn resistance by part of the 63rd Bn. Machine Gun Corps, and recaptured on 29 August by the 10th Bn. South Wales Borderers. At the time of the Armistice, the cemetery consisted of only 40 graves (now Plot I), mainly those of officers and men of the 2nd Grenadier Guards who died on 25 September 1916, but it was very greatly increased when graves were brought in from the battlefields and small cemeteries round Lesboeufs. There are now 3,136 casualties of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 1,643 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 83 soldiers known or believed to be buried among them.
Other special memorials record the names of five casualties buried in Ginchy A.D.S. Cemetery, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire, and three officers of the 2nd Bn. Coldstream Guards, killed in action on 26 September 1916 and known to have been buried together by the roadside near Lesboefs, whose grave could not later be located. The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker.
37356, A.C. 38th, Machine Gun Corps (Inf)
GUARDS' CEMETERY, LESBOEUFS
Commemorated in perpetuity by
Lance Corporal H W MASON
who died
on 02 September 1918
Remembered with honour
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
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