Connaught Cemetery near Thiepval village
Connaught Cemetery, near the village of Thiepval, was meticulously designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield under the auspices of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Nestled along the D73, bordering Thiepval Wood, it offers a view of the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, which rises above the trees.
Connaught Cemetery is adjacent to the Ulster Tower Memorial and Mill Road Cemetery, which were all created on the positions of British forces during the Battle of the Somme.
Established in the autumn of 1916, Connaught Cemetery initially contained the 228 graves of soldiers who fell during the summer and autumn of that year. It was later expanded to accommodate the remains of 1,268 Commonwealth soldiers who had been buried in temporary battlefield cemeteries and village cemeteries.
Tragically, nearly half of these soldiers remain unidentified. The memorial plaques also pay tribute to the soldiers buried in Division Road Cemetery No. 2, whose graves were destroyed during the war, as well as to the soldiers whose identity is unknown but are presumed to be buried in Connaught Cemetery. The mine explosion that damaged the headstones in 1926 did not destroy the graves.
A soldier buried in Connaught Cemetery 99 years after his death
In 2013, during roadworks near Thiepval, construction workers discovered the remains of a World War I soldier.
DNA testing identified him as Sergeant David Harkness Blakey of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, a unit of the 109th Brigade, 36th Ulster Division. Sergeant Blakey, only 26 years old, had been mortally wounded on July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, while stationed near Thiepval Wood.
The Ministry of Defence’s Joint Victim Assistance and Soldiers’ Family Support Centre organised a burial ceremony. Thus, in October 2015, Sergeant Blakey was laid to rest with full military honours at Connaught Cemetery, in the presence of his descendants. Two unknown soldiers, one from the Royal Irish Rifles and the other from the Cambridgeshire Regiment, were also buried beside him.
The pallbearers of the Royal Irish Regiment solemnly presented the British flag that had draped Sergeant Blakey’s coffin to his granddaughter, while his great-great-grandchildren recited a poem written by his father in his honour a century earlier. Sergeant David Harkness Blakey’s bravery was posthumously recognised with the Military Medal for Gallantry in Action in December 1916, a testament to his courage and sacrifice.
Department of Somme – Picardie region
Coordinates: Lat 50.058805 – Long 2.680487
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Header and Memorial to 5 soldiers and Cemetery entrance by Wernervc CC BY-SA 3.0
