After yesterday’s unsuccessful attempt, Greg and Lt Scarterfield today reach Aulnoy Aerodrome (Aulnoy-lez-Valenciennes). This flight was part of 42 Squadron RAF’s move from Marquain in Belgium back into France.
Log Book
Date: Nov 25th Machine Type: RE8 RE8: 2517 Observer: Scarterfield Time: 20 min Height: 2000 Course/Remarks: Travelling to Valenciennes
The fact that they reached 2,000 ft during the flight indicated better weather – or at least higher cloud cover – than yesterday.
Aulnoy-lez-Valenciennes
Greg’s Log Book only indicates that they were travelling to Valenciennes. But there were several airfields near the town. Marly, Saultain, Aulnoy, la Briquette and Saint Leger were all local aerodromes, as shown on the following map.
I’m grateful to Great War Forum user fetubi for identifying which aerodrome that 42 Squadron moved to at this stage. (He says that the move was on 28 November 1918, so perhaps that was the date of its completion. There was of course less pressure to complete such moves swiftly now.) And the ever useful Anciens Aerodromes site enabled me to distinguish between the adjacent aerodromes known as Aulnoy and la Briquette.
42 Squadron Moves to Aulnoy-lez-Valenciennes
So, from these various sources of information, we can establish that Greg and Lt Scarterfield flew the 21 miles (34 km) SSE from Marquain to Aulnoy.
The squadron’s new aerodrome was just 2 miles (3 km) south of the centre of Valenciennes. The site is now a housing development, next to a Carrefour supermarket and Junction 21 of the A2 autoroute.
Today was exactly two weeks after Armistice Day, which was when the squadron had moved to Marquain. So Greg’s stay in Belgium lasted just 14 days.
Next Up…
The next entry in Greg’s log book is for 8 December 1918. But it seems likely that there was some joyriding to be done before then. And we will have a couple of entries in Greg’s B Flight Orders notebook to look at in early December.