Three Cemeteries on the
Loos Battlefields

Loos – St Mary’s Advanced Dressing Station – John Kipling

St Mary’s Advanced Dressing Station was established during the Battle of Loos in September 1915, and the cemetery is named after this ADS. It is a concentration cemetery from the battlefield of Loos and the great majority of burials are those of soldiers, who fell in September and October, 1915.

There are now nearly 2,000, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this cemetery. Of these, over two-thirds are unidentified. It was the nature of the fighting that would leave so many dead not being able to be recovered from the battlefields until the war was over – more than three years later. Very few would be identified and many of the cemeteries contain a very high percentage of unknowns, most of who died in the autumn of 1915.

One named grave in this cemetery is still the centre of controversy, that of John Kipling, son of Rudyard Kipling. The grave of Lieutenant John Kipling of the 2nd Battalion Irish Guards, died 27th September 1915, aged 18, is located in Plot V11, Row D, Grave 2.

In 1992 the CWGC decided that the unknown Irish Guard’s Lieutenant buried here had to be Kipling, because they could account for all the other Lieutenants who had fallen during the battle. However, some believe that Kipling had not been officially gazetted as a full Lieutenant despite having received the promotion. Therefore, this Lieutenant of the Irish Guards could not be someone who may well have been wearing a 2nd Lieutenant’s markings at the time of his death.

His father, Rudyard Kipling a famous author, had used his influence to get his son a commission in the Irish Guards, despite John failing a medical due to his poor eyesight.

John was lost during the Battle of Loos and his father never got over the loss of his son. This is clearly felt in his Epitaphs of the War where he wrote the lines, “If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied”.

Rudyard Kipling became actively involved with Imperial War Graves Commission after the war and it was his phrase ‘Known unto God’ that would be inscribed on the headstones of the fallen with no name. He also campaigned vigorously for a headstone rather than a cross so that much more information could be placed on it.

Even though a soldier could not be given a name, every effort was made to give some kind of ‘identity’ to him, whether it was something to indicate a rank or regiment.

In some CWGC cemeteries you can see many examples of the efforts that have been taken. One example are the headstones with the inscription ‘A Scottish soldier of the Great War’, meaning something must have been found with the body to indicate a Scottish regiment.

Loos – Quarry Cemetery

The battlefield cemetery is located in an unused quarry and was in operation mainly between July 1915 and June 1916. It contains the bodies of the soldiers from the dismounted Calvary who served on this sector between 1915 and 1916. Nearly one third of the 139 burials are from the fighting that took place in October 1915 from the fighting at Fosse 8 and the Hohenzollern Redoubt.

The cemetery was shelled many times and many of the headstones read “Buried near this spot” along with the inscription at the base “Their glory shall not be blotted out”. A lot of graves were lost but were known to be somewhere in the cemetery.

The Battle of Loos formed a part of the wider Artois-Loos Offensive conducted by the French and British in the autumn of 1915, sometimes also referred to as the Second Battle of Artois.

The Loos offensive began on 25th September 1915, following a four day artillery bombardment in which 250,000 shells were fired and was called off in failure on 28th September. 

The attack was renewed by the British on the 13th October 1915, but further heavy losses combined with poor weather caused the offensive to be finally called off. It was also the first time that the British used gas.

The British suffered 50,000 casualties with the German casualties estimated at almost half. It was the British failure at Loos which contributed to Haig’s replacement of French as Commander-in-Chief at the close of 1915.

Captain Fergus Bowes-Lyon, The Black Watch

The brother of the late Queen Mother, Fergus Bowes-Lyon was killed during the Battle of the Hohenzollern Redoubt in the Battle of Loos on 27th September. He was leading an attack on this strongpoint when his leg was blown off by German artillery. Bullets then struck him in the chest on the battlefield.

He was buried in the quarry which was adopted as battlefield cemetery, but details were of his grave were lost, and so he was recorded among the names of the missing on the Loos Memorial. 

In November 2011 Bowes-Lyon’s grandson supplied family records to the CWGC detailing his original burial place, and showing that it had remained marked until the end of the war. As a result, in August 2012 his place of commemoration was moved to the Quarry Cemetery, marked by a headstone inscribed with his details and the words “Buried near this spot” as the precise location of the grave is still not known.

Loos – Dud Corner Cemetery and Loos Memorial

This cemetery stands on the site of the German strongpoint, the Lens Road Redoubt which was captured by the 15th (Scottish) Division on the first day of the Battle of Loos, 25th September 1915.

The name of the cemetery is derived from the large number of shells that remained unexploded when the land was being cleared for the cemetery after the war. There are 1,812 burials, over 1100 are unidentified and are ‘Known unto God’.

The names of the unknown soldiers will be inscribed on the Memorial to the Missing which are the panels on the three sides of the walled cemetery.

The Loos Memorial to the Missing has the names of more than 20,610 soldiers who died on this front and who have no known grave. 8,500 of those soldiers died on the very first day of the Battle of Loos and of those, 6,500 have no known grave.

Four Brothers lost, three on the same day at Loos

The sad legacy of this horrific war is illustrated with the story of the Mochrie brothers. They came from a small North Ayrshire town called Kilbirnie in Scotland and all three died on the first day of the Battle of Loos, the 25th September 1915. Not one of them has a grave and they are all commemorated on the Loss Memorial to the Missing.

Robert Mochrie, the youngest at 19 was in the Royal Scots Fusiliers, Matthew Mochrie was 21 and served with the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) and James Mochrie, 28, was a corporal in the Gordon Highlanders. They had a fourth brother, Andrew, 38, survive that day only to perish on 9th June 1917 during the Battle of Arras. He served with the 9th Battalion, the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Bay 6 of the Arras Memorial. All four brothers lost and with no known grave.

On the 25th September, 1915, the first day of the Battle of Loos, Piper Laidlaw was awarded the Victoria Cross when he jumped on the parapet, tore off his gas mark and started to play his bagpipes which inspired the Scottish soldiers to pour over the top and advance on the German lines.

His citation read:

London Gazette, 18 November, 1915. For most conspicuous bravery prior to an assault on German trenches near Loos and Hill 70 on 25th September 1915. During the worst of the bombardment, when the attack was about to commence, Piper Laidlaw, seeing that his company was somewhat shaken from the effects of gas, with absolute coolness and disregard of danger, mounted the parapet, marched up and down and played the company out of the trench. The effect of his splendid example was immediate, and the company dashed out to the assault. Piper Laidlaw continued playing his pipes till he was wounded.

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