Martinpuich British Cemetery seen from Martinpuich Cemetery, Martinpuich, France. © 2013 by John M. Shea
"The march was mostly across country. It took us through the new unfinished lines of wired trench on Senlis Ridge, which must need a lot of labour. A halt was made beside Harponville aerodrome, which had been hurriedly deserted. The sun was still below the horizon when we climbed the ridge on which it was built, and it grew upon us. Its austere lines and form fitted the site on top of a bare down. The half-light, the solitude and the stillness gave to its rude simplicity so strange a grandeur that one could forget it was an empty thing of deal and cloth, and colour camouflage; it might have been a relic of a bygone race or of some forgotten rite. At sunrise there was a scene of splendour as a vast expanse of downland, falling to the west, was unfolded from the shroud of mist rolling slowly off the hollows, and the early sunbeams lighted up here a field, there a wood or red roof, until all was colourful."
Excerpt from the entry for May 21, 1918 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J. C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and fellow soldiers who served with him. Dunn's unit was northeast of Amiens where they gone at the beginning of April to reinforce the British line against the German Somme Offensive, Operation Michael, which was suspended on the 5th. It was quickly followed by Operation Georgette on April 9, the second of five German Offensives in 1918. The Allies were expecting the next attack any day. Harponville is north of the Somme River, the apex of a pyramid with the base following the river from Amiens to Péronne.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, pp. 482–483, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
1918-05-21, 1918, May, aerodrome, Martinpuich British Cemetery, Martinpuich, Martinpuich Cemetery
