Following on from yesterday’s post about an aerial photo taken south of Mametz-en-Picardie, today we have another vertical aerial view from the Somme sector. This one is complete with fireworks resulting from a direct bomb hit on an ammunition train.
Aerial Views Then and Now
And the view today from Google maps:
Bray-sur-Somme
Bray is 19 miles (31 km) east of Amiens and 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Villers Bretonneux. The location of this photograph is nearly co-incident with that of an earlier one of a kite balloon, taken on 15 May 1918:
Ammunition Train
The ammunition train appears to be in sidings near what looks like a dump or supply depot, which has its own railway spur. The following map extract has been stitched together from adjoining 1:20,000 trench maps.
There is no sign of the railway tracks on a 1915 1:40,000 map (Sheet 62D). Neither, unsurprisingly, is there any sign on a modern 1:25,000 map of the area, given that the Google aerial view shows no obvious traces.
205 Squadron RAF
The negative number in the titling strip is 205.v.1541. I’m grateful to Timothy Slater (who blogs here and tweets here) for the following information in reply to a tweet of yesterday’s post:
@GregsWar both this photograph and your previous kite balloon photo were taken by 205 Sqn RAF (previously 5 Sqn RNAS). At the time they were flying DH4s on bombing missions for V Bde RAF. I can’t identify any obvious links between 205 & 42 Sqns though.
So today we have evidence of 205 Squadron’s precision bombing. A good day’s work.