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In Memory of

BERTRAM WILLIAM BRASSETT - Private - 61513

1st Bn., Canterbury Regiment, N.Z.E.F.

who died on

Sunday, 25th August 1918. Age 25.

Additional Information:

Son of Annie and the late Andrew Brassett, of 48, Beresford St., Linwood, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Location: Grevillers is a village in the Department of the Pas de Calais, 3 kilometres west of Bapaume. From Bapaume take the RD929 in the direction of Amiens, turn immediately right onto the RD7, where a signpost indicates the cemetery. After 500 metres turn left at junction onto RD29, where a signpost indicates the cemetery which is on the right after a further 50 metres. Within the cemetery is the Grevillers (New Zealand) Memorial which commemorates the names of those soldiers of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force who fell in the Battle of the Somme and the advances in 1918 and have no known grave.

Historical Information: The village was occupied by British troops on the 14th March, 1917, and in April and May the 3rd, 29th and 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing Stations were posted near it. They began the British Cemetery, and continued to use it until March, 1918; but on the 25th March, Grevillers was captured by the enemy. A German Cemetery was then made on the East side of the British, continuing the existing lay-out. On the following 24th August, the New Zealand Division recaptured Grevillers, and in September the 34th, 49th and 56th Casualty Clearing Stations came to the village and resumed the use of the British Cemetery. After the Armistice, 200 graves were brought in from the battlefields to the South of the village, and 40 from the German Cemetery; and the 927 German graves were removed to another cemetery. There are now nearly 2,000, 1914-18 and a small number of 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, nearly 200 from the 1914-18 War are unidentified, and special memorials are erected to 15 soldiers from Australia and three from the United Kingdom, known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of two soldiers from the United Kingdom, buried in Avesnes-les-Bapaume German Cemetery, whose graves could not be found. Certain graves in the cemetery, identified as groups but not individually, are marked by headstones bearing the additional words: "Buried near this spot." The cemetery covers an area of 5,988 square metres and is enclosed partly by a brick wall. Graves from the following two cemeteries were concentrated into Grevillers British Cemetery:- AVESNES-LES-BAPAUME GERMAN CEMETERY, "near the British huts", contained the graves of two soldiers from the United Kingdom who died in April, 1918. BAYONET TRENCH CEMETERY, GUEUDECOURT, contained the graves of 19 soldiers of the 1st Australian Infantry Battalion who fell on the 5th November, 1916.