Lewisroberts Posted 23 July , 2014 Share Posted 23 July , 2014 Dear All, I am currently researching my Great Uncle's service history and have finally confirmed the location of his grave. He died of wounds on 6/02/1917 after a trench raid in the following area (from the 1 DCLI war diary): Cuinchy right sub sector A22 aoc 15 A21 d9 8 Trench map 36c nw1 1/10000 Does anyone know about this area, the action and how I can locate this area today? Many Thanks, Lewis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Langdon Posted 23 July , 2014 Share Posted 23 July , 2014 Try this: Great War British Trench MapCoordinates Converter Put in 36c.nw1. into the box and it will give you the "centroid of the grid location": 50.4558, 2.9607. Put these coordinates into Google Maps (without the final dot) and you should find the spot. I'm fairly new to this but I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong! Mike With acknowledgements to skipman for his recent coordinates post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fattyowls Posted 23 July , 2014 Share Posted 23 July , 2014 Dear All, I am currently researching my Great Uncle's service history and have finally confirmed the location of his grave. He died of wounds on 6/02/1917 after a trench raid in the following area (from the 1 DCLI war diary): Cuinchy right sub sector A22 aoc 15 A21 d9 8 Trench map 36c nw1 1/10000 Does anyone know about this area, the action and how I can locate this area today? Many Thanks, Lewis Hi Lewis and welcome to the Forum. If you can identify the location using the converter post where it is and I or one of the real experts can help with the location and hopefully the action. If you can post your great uncle's name, rank, number and any other detail you have I'm sure we can point you in the right direction. A search on the name will likely bring up lots of previous threads. The Cuinchy sector is quite famous for amongst other things the existence of brickstacks which were heavily fought over for a long period. Robert Graves was in this sector in 1915 and describes the area in 'Goodbye To All That'. It's not a particularly rewarding area today at least for me. A power station was built on the site which has now been demolished and the area was mostly scrubby trees when I was there last September. Pete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewisroberts Posted 23 July , 2014 Author Share Posted 23 July , 2014 Hi All, Thanks for your advice and assistance. My Great Uncles details are as follows: 9436 Sgt William Roberts Died of wounds 6/2/17 and is buried in Bethune cemetery 1 DCLI war diary says that the Bn were in the 'Village Line' on the 1st then they relieved the 12th Gloucester Regiment on the 3rd at the 'Cuinchy Right Sub Sector' A large trench raid is conducted on the 6th where one OR dies of wounds - the only OR recorded in the war diary who dies of wounds on that evening is William Roberts. I have used the map tool and it gave a location about 25km SE of Cuinchy? Not sure this is correct? I have found Robert Graves book and will get stuck in tonight. I look forward to hearing any additional info or guidance i due course. Best, Lewis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Langdon Posted 24 July , 2014 Share Posted 24 July , 2014 Hi Lewis, Is it possible to copy and paste the coordinates as they appear in the diary? The "aoc" is odd - I've put in "a" instead (it should be a single letter) - and for some reason dropping the "nw1" seems to help. For the converter: 36c.A.22.a.1.5. and 36c.A.21.d.9.8. The result is north and south of RN D941 between Cuinchy and Auchy-les-mins. As before hopefully an expert might explain why your coordinates are sending us south-east away from the area. And whether these new positions are correct for the Cuinchy Brickstacks. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ypres Posted 24 July , 2014 Share Posted 24 July , 2014 (edited) Lewis. Map Ref, is correct, 36C.A21.d. 9.8 and A.22. is between Cuinchy and Auchy. Jim See attached map (Linesman) Hope this helps Edited 24 July , 2014 by ypres Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewisroberts Posted 24 July , 2014 Author Share Posted 24 July , 2014 Hi, Thanks for your assistance - this is great! Does anyone have a higher resolution picture that would allow me to zoom in on the trench names and numbers? Many thanks. Regards, Lewis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Langdon Posted 24 July , 2014 Share Posted 24 July , 2014 There's a guy here in the forum - Edward1 (Hammer of the Scots?) who superimposed a trench map for me on the present landscape which was brilliant - don't ask me how but track him down! Regards, Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EDWARD1 Posted 25 July , 2014 Share Posted 25 July , 2014 No need, picked up this topic and here is a larger map of squares A21/A22 Eddie ps if you require an overlay just let me know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EDWARD1 Posted 25 July , 2014 Share Posted 25 July , 2014 Did one anyway Eddie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tunneller1916 Posted 26 July , 2014 Share Posted 26 July , 2014 I have linked onto this interesting topic after some very helpful information given to me by Edward for my own research into the area. To add a bit more information to the fascinating trench overlay posted above, I attach a detail from an ariel photograph of the area from 24.12.16. from the McMaster University resource http://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A34 Regards, Anthony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tunneller1916 Posted 26 July , 2014 Share Posted 26 July , 2014 Re the above Post. The attachment was to large to load, so you can go to http://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/search/cuinchy?type=dismax, where downloads are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License Anthony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Langdon Posted 26 July , 2014 Share Posted 26 July , 2014 Fascinating. The more you look the more you see. And the road that runs through left to right virtually obliterated. Thanks Anthony. I'm now going to see if there's anything like it for Port Arthur to the north at McMasters. Early 1915 (for my research) will be too early I suspect but there wasn't a massive amount of movement/changes there before reconnaissance and mapping really got going. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewisroberts Posted 26 July , 2014 Author Share Posted 26 July , 2014 Thanks to everyone who has contributed and commented - this has been really fascinating and I am planning to take my father to the site in September. Best regards, Lewis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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