Aerial pic of gas attack

[bob lembke]

Looking again, and looking at a magnified detail that I had not looked at closely, I also think that they are not tents, but they are too close to the front line, and why is there no noticable dirt from shelling thrown over them. Who could do all that work within rifle shot of the front line? If it is simply top-soil scrapped away from a chalk sub-strait in fixed patterns, why? (How deep was the chalk under the surface? I. e., how thick the top-soil before the chalk?)

The "line of trees" is an oddity. Who ever saw an active front line crossed by a tree-lined road, without a single tree blown or cut down? Either drawn in, or it was not an active front line, but a training area, or something of the sort.

Was any cylinder gas used that produced dense white clouds? Or is this yellowish chlorine that views white? Did chlorine produce such dense visible clouds?

Can't believe that this is a picture of a real gas (and not smoke) attack on a major active front line like the Somme or possibly Flanders.

Bob

[Aurel Sercu]

Thanks, gentlemen, but the puzzle remains ... a puzzle.

I cannot add anything new, except that on the photo with the trees I also noticed a couple of white spots (at first sight reflections in water filled trench parts ?) that are not on the photo without the trees. But I guess this is not really relevant.

As Tom suggested : the road Albert - Bapaume ? Yes, if this is the Somme, then I had thought of that road too.

Bob, white tents or not ? Or the chalk of the subsoil being laid bare ? I have no idea. Maybe just this : maybe these white spots are not related to the war, maybe they were there before the war ?

A tree-lined road with not one single tree missing ? Indeed not very likely.

Also this : Jeff pointed out that the road appears to be made dark with a line drawn over the lighter original road. I tend to agree.

But I cannot help being amazed, if the trees were added later, at the perfect way they fade into the "gas clouds".

If they were added later : was it to hide (from the enemy, if he got this in hands) where the location was ? (The same could be said if the trees were there originally, but were erased...) Or were the trees added later, after the war, by the man who wrote "Attaque aux gaz - Somme", and who wanted to point out that road, make it recognizable, because after the war ... trees were planted there ?

Also this : if the photo indeed is 1 Jan 1917 (as the tree-less version says) ... Trees had no foliage then... Except pine trees. But then : Flemish or Somme roads lined with pine trees ?

Aurel

[Tom W.]

For those who can read French handwriting, here are the diaries of the French gas and flame units, posted online by the French Ministry of Defense:

http://www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.go...amp;qid=sdx_q13

Eight companies of the 22nd and 40th Battalions of the 1st Engineer Regiment were the flame units, while 12 companies of the 22nd, 31st, 32nd, 33rd, and 34th Battalions were the gas units.

Scroll down and click the red links to access the diaries directly. The gas and flame units did work together, their joint tactics laid out in "Note of the 39th Army Corps of October 3, 1917: Plan for the Employment of Z Units (Note du 39e C.A. du 03 octobre 1917: Plan d’emploi des unités Z).

http://souterrains.vestiges.free.fr/spip.php?article35

[Aurel Sercu]

Thanks, Tom.

I'm trying to find my way, hoping to discover where unit x, y or z was on 1 Jan 1917.

Not simple.... :-(

Aurel