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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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