Details

Authuile and Aveluy are villages and adjacent communes in the Department of the Somme. Aveluy is North of Albert, on the right (or West) bank of the Ancre; Authuile is North of Aveluy, on the left (or East) bank. Blighty Valley was the name given by the Army to the lower part of the deep valley running down South-Westwards through Authuile Wood to join the river between Authuile and Aveluy; a railway was carried along it soon after July, 1916, and it was for some time an important (though inevitably a dangerous) route. The upper part of the valley was called Nab Valley.

Blighty Valley Cemetery is almost at the mouth of the valley, a little way up its northern bank. It is partly in either commune. It was begun early in July, 1916, and used until the following November by the troops taking part in the fighting on that front. It then contained the graves of 212 soldiers, and comprised the whole of the present Plot I except 21 graves; and it was not used again until after the Armistice, when 784 graves were brought in from the battlefields and small cemeteries to the East. The majority of the officers and men thus reburied fell on the 1st July, 1916.

The Cemetery contains the graves of 993 soldiers from the United Kingdom, two from Australia and one from Canada. The unnamed graves number 532, and special memorials are erected to 24 soldiers from the United Kingdom, buried by the Germans in Bécourt German Cemetery in the spring of 1918, whose graves could not be found on exhumation. The 70th Infantry Brigade erected a wooden memorial in the cemetery to their dead of the 1st July, 1916.

The only important graveyard concentrated into Blighty Valley Cemetery was -
Quarry Post Cemetery, Authuile Wood, which was on the South-Eastern edge of the wood, in the commune of Ovillers-La-Boisselle. It was used from July, 1916 to February, 1917, chiefly by units of the 12th (Eastern) Division, and it contained the graves of 50 soldiers from the United Kingdom.

Number of burials by Unit

Awards

2nd Lt. L. M. Ekin M.C., York & Lancaster Regiment, died 1st July 1916 aged 22. V. C. 13

L/Cpl H. Exley M.M., 1st/7th Bn. West Yorkshire Regiment, died 14th July 1916. I. A. 5

R.S.M. W. H. Fear M.C., 1st/8th Bn. West Yorkshire Regiment, died 14th July 1916, aged 42. I. A. 6

Lt. Col. C. G. Forsyth D.S.O.,Chevalier de la Legion d' Honneur. 2nd Bn.Northumberland Fusiliers, Attached to 6th Bn. Died 14th September 1916, aged 29. I. F. 13

Lt. Col. W. B. Gibbs, Mentioned in Despatches, Order of the Nile. 3rd Bn. Worcestershire Regiment, Died of wounds 3rd September 1916, aged 35. I. D. 36

Sgt. J. S. Hepworth M.M. 1st/6th Bn. Duke of Wellington Regiment, K.I.A. 22nd September 1916 aged 25. I. G. 11

L/Sgt. H. Ingleby D.C.M. 1st/7th Bn. West Yorkshire Regiment, died 1st August 1916 aged 20. I. A. 28

Bmdr. F. Massey M.M., "D" Bty, 86th Brig. Royal Field Artillery, died 3rd July 1916. II. D. 9

Sgt. T. Priestley D.C.M., M.M. 8th Bn. King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, died 1st July, 1916. III. J. 1

Gnr. F. Rawlings M.M. 1st Bty. 45th Brig. Royal Field Artillery, died 1st July 1916. V. E. 12

Cpl. W. J. Smith M.M. 19th Trench Mortar Bty. Royal Garrison Artillery, died 1st July aged 21. II. L. 9

C.S.M. D. J. Strickland M.M. 1st/4th Bn. Gloucestershire Regiment, died 17th July, 1916. II. E. 3

Sgt. W. Thomas M.M. 6th Bn. South Wales Borderers, died 20th October 1916. I. H. 9

Sgt. J. T. Waldron D.C.M. 8th Bn. King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, died 1st July 1916. V. G. 17