Regina Trench Cemetery, Grandcourt

Regina Trench Cemetery lies about 1.5 kilometres north-west of the village of Courcelette.

On 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, Grandcourt village was reached by part of the 36th (Ulster) Division, but it was not until the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, early in February 1917, that it was occupied by patrols of the Howe Battalion, Royal Naval Division. To the south-east of it is Courcelette, taken by the 2nd Canadian Division on 15 September 1916.

Regina Trench was the name given by Canadian troops to a German earthwork, captured for a time by the 5th Canadian Brigade on 1 October 1916, attacked again by the 1st and 3rd Canadian Divisions on 8 October, taken in part by the 18th and 4th Canadian Divisions on 21 October, and finally cleared by the 4th Canadian Division on 11 November 1916. Rose E.B. Coombs, in Before Endeavours Fade notes that it was the longest trench built by the Germans on the Western Front.

Regina Trench ran east-west across the area, and its exact site coincides with the original part of the Cemetery (now Plot II, Rows A to D), which were made in the winter of 1916-1917.

The Cemetery was completed after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields of Courcelette, Grandcourt and Miraumont; most date from October 1916 to February 1917.

Regina Trench Cemetery now contains 2,279 burials and commemorations of the First World War, including the grave of James Brooke Ormerod (Grave Ref. IX. C. 15.), who died on 8 October 1916.