DAY 3 10TH SEPTEMBER 1997

   As usual the body clock did it's business, I was awake at 7:30 (6:30 UK time). The night had been eventful. David has this sinus problem which means he howls at night. His wife warned me about it, but the first time I heard it, it scared the crap out of me. It sounded like a weird Indian chant combined with a banchee howl. My ear plugs didn't protect me. I decided to tape the noise as no one would believe me, I did so using my dictaphone, I carry around with me for taking notes. Well we got up and brushed up. I premiered my tape combined with threats to peices of my friends anatomy if there was a repeat performance tonight!!!. Breakfast was as usual good, combined with the usual conversation. Today was going to be Hindenburg line day, a car bound journey in the Cambrai ish area. Davids interest is the Kent Yeomanry and they fought around Ephey so we were going to wander around there for the morning and later on we were going to visit the Queant Drocourt and Hermies area for my RND studies. We had done our homework as usual and had our blue maps. From the unit history of the 10th E.Kents (Yeo Bttn) unit history we had maps of the area of interest. The geography had changed a little, but there were certain features we wanted to try and look up. As I've said before to appreciate an action, you need to put both feet on the ground at the actual area. The trick is to identify the actual area. Our planwas to take the scale drawings of trenches from the unit history and photocopy it. I then enlarged the photocopy to the same scale as out blue series map. I then photocopied this enlarges copy onto acetate. All very easy, you then overlay the acetate onto the blue series map and there you have it, points identified. This is an example of doing your homework before you come out as you can waste valueble touring time.

      We struck out through Albert on the Perronne road, how many of you have driven out of Albert along this obviously roman road (dead straight) and driven straight past that little cemetery on the right as you leave Albert, just after the roundabout. I know ,we always have, except this time we decided to stop there and see what we had driven past. Well it was a 1st July cemetery, full of Tyneside Scottish and Tyneside Irish with a mix of Anzacs. I felt better having not driven past and combined with the many other cemeteries I has seen locally began to get the impression that many of these Tyneside Pals that we killed at La Boiselle just up the road seemed to lie in known graves. We carried on up to the nightmare of Perronne, the journey takes you past many features ie Pozieres, Butte de Warlencourt, the road is straight and you can witness the suicidal French overtaking for additional entertainment, but this is the axis of attack of the Somme 1916 offensive, and the folds in the ground and geography really start to make sense. There is a ridge around Pozieres, if you get out at the memorial and look back you really notice the view over Albert.. We were now very much into 1917/18 country, the area we were going to was the 74th Divs sector for the late 1918 offensive, to increase the Kent interest the 18th and 12th Divs also fought in tandem around here. We headed for Roissel and stopped at St.Emile cemetery for David to get some photo's of headstones, the cemeteries out here are smaller battlefield style rather than the massive concentration ones in the 1916 area.  We moved on to Templeux Gerard and made two more stops, the Gardners were out in their white vans again, it amazes me how many of these we see, how many are British, but where ever we went the cemeteries were parade ground tidy. Also the plaque of stolen registers seems to have eased this year. Next stop was the Hargicourt area, it was now that our maps and transparency came into its own (also the compass so you don't get disorientated). We found the position of some quarries that the battalion (10th Buffs) camped in the night before moving on and taking major casualties!!. The quarries had either been fioled in or we shallow open caste efforts, as they were shallow dips in the ground. These we couldn't find last year, there was also a deeper quarry with dugouts mentioned, on the map we found this should be hidden a clump of trees if or transparency technique was right. We were correct, we found the trees and these were indeed in a hollow, we didn't tresspass to find out about dugouts etc.. We then dorve on to find the trench lines. We identified a radio mast as being Quillimont farm or the site of and we then parked up. The fields where the fight took place was clear of crops and flat. David was anxious to find the position of a German strongpoint than caused many problems to the 10th Bttn, and also to walk the field. We looked at the maps, we found that the Autoroute ran straight through what were the British trenches or just in front of them. The strongpoint we found was a clump of trees. Feeling brave we decided to walk across to this clump of tree's . The ground was free of shrapnel, and flat, we reached the trees and went in. The first thing we saw was this massive mortar shell proped up against a tree, the largest one I've seen. The ground in which the trees were planted was strewn with shell holes, we had found our link with the past. Looking out at the British lines, we saw the lovely field of fire the defenders had, the Autoroute spoiled the scenery a bit. We walked back to the car and decided to drive to L'Empire where the unicorn cemetery is, it is a pleasant one full of all sorts of casualties, cavalry, Anzacs and British. This was an ideal area to stop for lunch, also last year we found an unknown East Kent Yeoman headstone which is unique on the Western Front, it meant that the body was identifiable as a yeoman by badges (they kept their old yeomanry badges when the West Kent and East Kent Yeomen were combined to form the 10th Buffs). We wanted to find the grave number etc so that we could write to the CWGC to see where this man was found. Having found this out and had our nosebag we took off northwards. We went off through Ronsoy and Ephey, we failed to locate the massive blockhouse as shown in the battleground europe book from there we went to Gouzecourt which is famous for the part played there in 1917. From there we went to Havrincourt, nd to Havrincourt Wood, this area was one that the RND fought through in March 1918 as a running battle with the Germans. They came back later in 1918, slightly further north, an area which we were travelling to. From here we went to Hermies. There are two large cemeteries here, one has a famous VC in, Brig Gen Bradford, who was only 25 (What would the pre war regulars thought of that!!), and the other contained RMLI casualties of sept 1918, I continued my unknown RMLI headstone count. From there we went to Anneux, again I did my unknown Headstone count, but looking out of the cemetery wall the battlefield of early Sept 1918 can be seen. (see pic)From there we went to Queant Rd Cemetery of Buissy. This was where the Hindenburg line was situated, it was successfully assaulted and breached by the RND in 1918. On this point I will upset Canadian readers, history credits the Canadians for breaching the Queant-Drocourt line, this was also breached by the RND/ and 57th Div, although it is not fashionable for crediting British units for anything except to take the blame ( actually it was 57 Div who got into Camrai first!!). Queant rd holds many victims of the September 1918 fighting of the units in the area, it also contains the victims of the disasterous attack at Bullecourt 5th May 1917, hence contains many Aussies, including Sgt White who was only buried last year. Still with time on our side we went to Baupame then to Albert and through to Franvillers to take a phot of a local casualty for me, we then went to Corbie and saw the site of the Red Barons demise and tried to find a cemetery for a photo for me., it wasn't to be found so we drove out and found it by accident!!!. Here I found my casualty, and also out on his own Congrieve VC, his body had been bought back here for burial along way from where he had been killed. From here (Villers Brettoneaux is a couple of miles south) we went east to follow the line of advance in 1918, stopping at Mericourt to see local casualties, also the number of Australian Graves is high here. From there we returne to Les Galets and a walk up the Sunken lane before tea then to the Hawthorne ridge (see pic), after that a nights boxing on SKY and some beer tasting!!!

Back to tour page

onto day 4