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Loos-en-Gohelle is a village about 5
kilometres north-west of Lens. The Loos Memorial forms the side and back
of Dud Corner Cemetery where over 1,700 officers and men are buried, the
great majority of whom fell in the Battle of Loos. Dud Corner Cemetery,
which stands almost on the site of a German strong point, the Lens Road
Redoubt, captured by the 15th (Scottish) Division on the first day of
the battle, is located about 1 kilometre west of the village, on the
N43, the main Lens to Bethune road. The Loos Memorial commemorates over
20,000 officers and men who fell in the area from the River Lys to the
old southern boundary of the First Army, east and west of Grenay, and
who have no known grave. It covers the period from the first day of the
Battle of Loos to the date of the Armistice. On either side of the
cemetery is a wall 15 feet high, to which are fixed tablets on which are
carved the names of those commemorated. At the back are four small
circular courts, open to the sky, in which the lines of tablets are
continued, and between these courts are three semicircular walls or
apses, two of which carry tablets, while on the centre apse is erected
the Cross of Sacrifice.
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