Sailly-sur-la-Lys

Captain George Edward Henry McElroy MC & Two Bars, DFC & Bar (14 May 1893 – 31 July 1918) was a leading Irish fighter pilot of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force during World War I. He was credited with 47 aerial victories.

The Canton of Laventie was one of the 14 cantons of the arrondissement of Béthune, in the Pas-de-Calais department, in northern France. It had 18,792 inhabitants in 2012. It was disbanded following the French canton reorganisation which came into effect in March 2015.

Laventie (French pronunciation: ​[lavɑ̃ti]; West Flemish: Wentie) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France.

Steenwerck (French pronunciation: ​[stɛ̃vɛʁk]; Dutch: Steenwerk) is a commune, in French Flanders, in the Nord department in northern France. It is located about 25 km (16 mi) north of Lille and in 2013 had a population of 3519. People from Steenwerck are known as Steenwerckois. It is home to Steenwerck's 100 km à pied race event, which mainly features a 100 km (62 mi) marathon, although most local residents prefer to merely walk one lap (roughly 22 kilometres (14 mi)). Steenwerck also has its own festival giant, as is the tradition in the Nord Department, which is named Totor and is one of the tallest, measuring 5.70 m (18.7 ft). Other places of interest include the Museum of Rural Life as well as three Commonwealth war cemeteries, and a German war cemetery, of the First World War.

Estaires (French pronunciation: [etɛʁ]; West Flemish: Stegers) is a commune in the Nord department of the Hauts-de-France region in northern France. The town gives its name to a type of chicken bred in the area: the Estaires chicken.

Ernest Cotton Deane (4 May 1887 – 25 September 1915) was a medical officer of the British Indian Army and an Irish international rugby player. Born in the city of Limerick, Ireland, he went to school in Kingstown (present day Dún Laoghaire) in County Dublin and then studied medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), graduating in 1909. He was selected to play rugby for Ireland in one match, against England in February 1909. His rugby career was cut short when he broke his leg in a match against Oxford University. Deane was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1911, after a period as house surgeon at the Adelaide Hospital, Dublin. In 1913, he was posted to India and served in Burma. He was stationed in Meerut at the start of the First World War. From there, he travelled to France with the Garhwal Brigade of the Indian Expeditionary Force, landing in Marseille in September 1914. He was deployed immediately to the Western Front, where he served first with the 20th Field Ambulance and then as medical officer of the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Leicestershire Regiment. His unit saw much active service. On 22 August 1915, he was awarded the Military Cross after running out under machine gun fire to rescue four men who had been wounded by artillery fire. A month later, his regiment participated in the Battle of Loos, and was almost entirely obliterated. He was shot dead after going to help some injured soldiers: his action earned him a mention in despatches. Deane was one of 60 RCSI doctors to receive the Military Cross in the First World War, and one of 17 to be killed in action.

La Gorgue (French pronunciation: [la ɡɔʁɡ]) is a town in northern France. It is a commune in the Nord department. The population of La Gorgue in 2019 was 5,639. It was the location of the Beaupré-sur-la-Lys Abbey, founded in 1221, whose grounds were used as a Royal Flying Corps base during World War I.

Le Doulieu (French pronunciation: [lə duljø]; Dutch: Zoeterstee) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.

The Rue-du-Bois Military Cemetery is a World War I cemetery located in the commune of Fleurbaix, in the Pas-de-Calais departement of France, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) southwest of the village of Fleurbaix on the D171 road (rue Louis Bouquet), just before the hamlet of Pétillon. Of the 845 graves, 395 are of unknown soldiers.

Fleurbaix (French pronunciation: ​[flœʁbɛ]; West Flemish: Vloerbeek) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France.

The Le Trou Aid Post Cemetery is a World War I cemetery located in the commune of Fleurbaix, in the Pas-de-Calais departement of France, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of the village of Fleurbaix on the D175 road (rue de Pétillon).British soldiers of the 19th Infantry Brigade made the earliest burials at the site in October 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres. By the end of the war, the cemetery contained 123 graves. This number nearly tripled after a postwar consolidation of war burial sites, when Le Trou Aid Post was expanded by the architect Sir Herbert Baker.Described as one of Baker's most sentimental works, the rural site is surrounded by a narrow moat and sheltered by a grove of weeping willows. Visitors approach over a footbridge and enter through a delicate cottage-style gateway.The cemetery contains more than 350 graves, and over two hundred are unidentified. The dead represent the battlefields of Ypres, Le Maisnil (October 1914), Aubers Ridge (May 1915), Loos (September–October 1915), and Fromelles (July 1916).

The Lawe (French pronunciation: [lav] ) is a river of northern France, and a right tributary of the Lys. It is 41 km (25 mi) long. Its source is near Magnicourt-en-Comte. It flows generally northeast through Houdain, Bruay-la-Buissière, Béthune and Lestrem. It flows into the Lys in La Gorgue.