Commonwealth War Graves Valenciennes

Valenciennes (St. Roch) Communal Cemetery contains 885 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 37 of the burials are unidentified.

The cemetery also contains 34 burials from the Second World War, all but one of them airmen.

An interesting feature from the 1939-45 War, is a memorial tablet of white marble affixed to the outside wall of the shelter building, commemorating the Commission's former gardener, the late Robert Armstrong. An ex-Irish Guardsman, Mr. Armstrong held an Eire passport and, as a neutral, was allowed to continue at work in the cemetery after the outbreak of war. His sympathies impelled him to assist Allied soldiers and airmen to escape and he was arrested by the Germans at the end of 1943. The original death sentence was commuted to 15 years imprisonment and he was deported to Germany, dying at Waldheim Camp, Saxony, in December, 1944. For his help to Allied escapees he was posthumously awarded the Medaille de Resistance Francaise and the tablet was a voluntary token of remembrance from the people of Valenciennes and the surrounding district.

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Source

• Text: Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• Photos: Serge Ottaviani