Greg has deemed himself fit for war flying again, five days after his crash.
Diary
Sunday June 9th 1918. Told Flight Commander that I feel fit for war flying again.
Chaussée Brunehaut
But no flying for Greg that day. Perhaps he spent some time gazing over the airfield. The header image shows the view on a hazy day in June 2018 southwest over the site of Rely airfield from the Rue de Liettres towards the line of trees that mark the Thérouanne-Arras road, today’s D341, marked on some maps as a Chaussée Brunehaut (Brunhaut’s Causeway), which may be Roman in origin, or not – depending on the position you take in the debate. For more, see the Wikipedia entry here (in French, opens in new tab).
Geology of Rely and Yatesbury
The outlook was and is similar to that looking across Yatesbury airfield , where Greg started flying lessons less than three months ago, except that the distant road in that case was the London-Bath A4. The similarity of outlook isn’t surprising given the geology of Rely and the uplands of Artois on the one hand and Yatesbury and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire on the other: they are at opposite ends of the Weald-Artois Anticline and share the same sedimentary rocks of the Late Cretaceous period, as shown in this map:
E102 Returned to Sender
The Squadron CO’s orders for today show that E102, which had come off second best in Greg’s close encounter with a field of crops at Trézennes on 4 June, was struck off the charge of the squadron on 7 June and returned to No 1 ASD. See page 2:
Here is a reminder of the events of 4 June 1918:
Tuesday 4 June 1918 – Near Disaster on the First Day on the Front
Header image: shows the view on a hazy June day in 2018 southwest over the site of Rely airfield from the Rue de Liettres towards the D341, the Thérouanne-Arras road,