engineering

Pozières Memorial

Pozières Memorial is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pozières Memorial rather than just read about it. In short: The Pozières Memorial is a World War I memorial, located near the commune of Pozières, in the Somme department of France, and unveiled in August 1930. It lists the names of 14,657 British and South African soldiers of the Fifth and Fourth Armies with no known grave who were killed between 21 March 1918 and 7 August 1918, during the German advance known as the Spring Offensive (21 March–18 July), and the period of Al…

Key takeaways

Pozières Memorial belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pozières Memorial to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pozières Memorial from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Pozières Memorial is a World War I memorial, located near the commune of Pozières, in the Somme department of France, and unveiled in August 1930. It lists the names of 14,657 British and South African soldiers of the Fifth and Fourth Armies with no known grave who were killed between 21 March 1918 and 7 August 1918, during the German advance known as the Spring Offensive (21 March–18 July), and the period of Allied consolidation and recovery that followed. The final date is determined by the start of the period known as the Advance to Victory on 8 August. The memorial forms the perimeter walls of a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, which principally contains the bodies of men killed during the Battle of Pozières and the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Memorial

The memorial commemorates the missing of the British Fifth Army, and to a lesser extent of the Fourth Army (re-formed to turn the tide of battle following the virtual disintegration of the Fifth Army). The original intention was that the memorial at Pozières should commemorate the missing of the Third Army, while those of the Fifth Army would be commemorated at Saint-Quentin, at the heart of the Army's sector in March 1918. However, the French authorities objected to the amount of land being taken for British memorials, and so the names of the Third Army missing were added to the Arras Memorial, while the Fifth Army memorial was situated here, despite the fact that Pozières lay on the wrong side of the River Somme from the area in which those named had died. The memorial was designed by William Harrison Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner. It consists of a colonnade of wall panels forming three sides of the perimeter of a cemetery, and incorporating a Cross of Sacrifice. The names of the missing are inscribed on the panels, arranged by regiment or other unit. The fourth side of the cemetery, on the road frontage, is formed by an open arcade, with the entrance archway at its centre: the inscription is over this. The memorial was unveiled on 4 August 1930 by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, who had served as a general commanding the British II Corps and the British Second Army during the war.

Cemetery The memorial encloses a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, in which 2,758 Commonwealth servicemen are either buried or commemorated. Plot II (occupying less than one sixth of the site) is an original plot of 1916–18, containing 272 burials. The rest of the cemetery contains graves moved here from surrounding areas following the Armistice, the majority being those of soldiers killed during the Battle of Pozières and the latter stages of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. A few belong to men killed in August 1918 during the Advance to Victory. Approximately half the graves are those of unidentified bodies: of those identified, the majority belong to Australian soldiers. 57 Germans were buried here in 1918, but most of their remains were moved after the war, leaving just a single German grave.

Notable commemorations

Brigade commander The most senior officer commemorated on the Memorial is Brigadier-General G. N. B. Forster of the 14th (Light) Division, killed on 4 April 1918 when his brigade was in action near Villers-Bretonneux.

Victoria Crosses One Victoria Cross recipient is buried in the cemetery: he is Sergeant Claud Castleton of the Australian Machine Gun Corps, killed on 29 July 1916. Three Victoria Cross recipients are commemorated on the Memorial, under their respective units:

Private Herbert Columbine, Machine Gun Corps (killed on 22 March 1918) Second Lieutenant Edmund De Wind, Royal Irish Rifles (killed on 21 March 1918) Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfrith Elstob, Manchester Regiment (killed on 21 March 1918) Distinguished Conduct Medal Sergeant Percy W Pickles DCM. 4th Queens Own Hussars (killed on 31 March 1918) is commemorated on the Memorial Lance Corporal Francis George Preece DCM 28667 13th Bth Gloucestershire Regiment. Awarded DCM for actions in Feb 1918, in which he discharged a Bangalore into an enemy shelter. Died of shrapnel wounds during Germany’s Spring Offensive, 22 March 1918. (Quote: considerable loss by his battalion, the corporal of his section and of course his loving wife Ada). Lies in mass grave and is commemorated on the Memorial Wall.

References

External links

Pozieres Memorial at Commonwealth War Graves Commission website Picture of the entrance to the cemetery

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pozières Memorial

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pozières Memorial claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pozières Memorial before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pozières Memorial ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pozières Memorial

In research: Pozières Memorial appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pozières Memorial in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pozières Memorial is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures completed in 1930, Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries in France, Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pozières Memorial outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pozières Memorial in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pozières Memorial means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pozières Memorial out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pozières Memorial in simple terms?

Why does Pozières Memorial matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pozières Memorial?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pozières Memorial.