The war memorial of 32168 Private Fred Brew, 8th Battalion East Lancashire Regiment, who died on 10 April 1917, is located at the Arras Memorial in Faubourg d'Amiens Cemetery in Arras. (Bay 6)
The Arras Memorial in Faubourg d'Amiens Cemetery is located on Boulevard du Generale de Gaulle in Arras, on the western side of the town.
The French handed over Arras to Commonwealth forces in the spring of 1916 and the system of tunnels upon which the town is built were used and developed in preparation for the major offensive planned for April 1917. The Commonwealth section of the Faubourg d'Amiens Cemetery was begun in March 1916, behind the French military cemetery established earlier. It continued to be used by field ambulances and fighting units until November 1918. The cemetery was enlarged after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields and from two smaller cemeteries in the vicinity. The cemetery contains 2,651 Commonwealth burials of the First World War. In addition, there are 30 war graves of other nationalities, most of them German. The Arras Memorial commemorates almost 35,000 servicemen from the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand who died in the Arras sector between the spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918, the eve of the Advance to Victory, and have no known grave. The most conspicuous events of this period were the Arras offensive of April-May 1917, and the German attack in the spring of 1918. A separate memorial remembers those killed in the Battle of Cambrai in 1917.
During the Second World War, Arras was occupied by United Kingdom forces headquarters until the town was evacuated on 23 May 1940. Arras then remained in German hands until retaken by Commonwealth and Free French forces on 1 September 1944. The cemetery contains seven Commonwealth burials of the Second World War.
Click on an image to see an enlarged version. It was extremely difficult to get a good photo as Fred Brew is listed at the very top of the panel, which is between 3 and 4 metres high, and is rather eroded.
© Photos taken by Steve Brew on 27 August 1999