It was under a louring sky in May 2014 that my friend and I paid a visit to the Divisional Cemetery at Fontenay-le-Pesnel. Located 16 kilometers to the west of Caen, the cemetery is the final resting place of 460 Commonwealth soldiers of which 452 are identified.
Entrance to Fontenay-le-Pesnel War Cemetery 10th
10th May 2014
Immediately striking in the grounds of the cemetery is the profusion of headstones bearing the knot of the South Staffordshire Regiment. Of these, the majority carry the dates of the fighting during Operation Pomegranate, many of these men would have fallen in the repeated attempts to capture Noyers.
In addition, many men of the East Lancashire and the Royal Warwickshire Regiments as well as the Durham Light Infantry are commemorated in Fontenay-le-Pesnel War Cemetery.
It is near impossible to take in the details of each headstone, but one struck me as particularly sad. The headstone gave the details of a Private K.P. Mitton of the South Staffordshire Regiment who was killed on the 16th July 1944 at the age of 18. Towards the bottom of the headstone and you can see that his brother Flight Sergeant Harold Bertram of the R.A.F., killed in action on 11th February 1941, also lies here.
The cemetery also contains 59 German military graves.
The Cross of Sacrifice
Fontenay-le-Pesnel War Cemetery
There is a highly personal (and ultimately heartbreaking) account of the battle of Fontenay by Stephen Bagnall of the 5th East Lancs, called The Attack. It's not a common book and it's not cheap but it's an unsung classic. Extremely vivid - he started writing it in 1945 when all the memories were presumably still fresh.
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