Near Arras in the latter stages of #WW1 stood the 8th Casualty Clearing Station - today stands the @CWGC Cemetery of Duisans. It contains a number of those who sadly never recovered from their wounds in the CCS, many fell in the Battle of Arras in 1917 or subsequent fighting...

Today it is so peaceful to visit, but it utterly epitomises how sad the futility of war is; in just one generation, these very same battlefields would be fought over again with more fathers, brothers and sons never returning home to their loved ones...

Duisans Cemetery still bears the battle scars as a permanent reminder of the fierce fighting that took place here in #WW2 on 21st May 1940; when the Allies tried to counterattack and cut through the exposed German flanks...

The survivors of a German motorised column which had unfortunately found itself directly in the path of the advancing British & French armour, took refuge in this cemetery. A firefight later erupted in the cemetery when C Coy of 8/DLI and French Tanks in support...

cleared the Germans out of this position. Out of the estimated 100-120 German soldiers defending it; only 20-30 survived to be taken prisoner. However this was not the end of the action around the Duisans cemetery. For more blood was still to be shed here later that same day...

This time though it was to be a ‘blue-on-blue’ incident. In which in the dark of night due to misidentification French Tanks & British A/T guns dug in around the cemetery exchanged fire. Several of the tanks and 1 of the British A/T guns were hit, before the mistake was realised.