Town names, Somme 1916

[glennaa]

I recently found a 6 page write-up of my grandfather's history, including his service in the War. He mentions the names of towns around Somme, and due to his handwriting, I'm not sure I have the correct names - do these sound reasonable? I have underlined the names I am not sure about.

(transcribed from his writing):

...Left the mining section

at Ouderzeele on the 22nd of January 1916, and we all rejoined our

various regiments my being the 8th West Yorks Leeds Rifles, who were

at that time stationed at Calais, we stayed till February then we left

for the Somme – front (pasted) Amiens a big town through

Basincourt, Senlis and to the trenches february eighth, coming from the

trenches at time for rests in any of these villages Martinsort –

Varennes, Beaucourt – Bavelincourt and Vignacourt, which

was the largest village there, thirty Kilometres from the firing line

also at Naours, Flesselles, Hernicourt. We left Varennes on the

Friday night the last day in June and got in the trenches the

night before the Great advance, or British offensive, which started

July 1st 1916, on the Somme front...

Thanks,

Glenn

[Paul Reed]

A couple come to mind -

Senlis - is the correct spelling

Martinsort - Martinsart

Beaucourt - correct spelling

Bavelincourt - ditto

Vignacourt - ditto

Naours - ditto

Flesselles - ditto

Don't have a map in front of me, but you might find many of these on

http://www.mappy.com/

Or on a yellow series Michelin map. They are all between Amiens and Albert, north of the main road, with the exception of the last two which are west-ish of Amiens.

[Annie]

Oudezeele: North of Cassel

Annie

[Bob Coulson]

Basincourt=Bavincourt near Humbercamps??

Bob.

[glennaa]

Thanks for the help. I am in the US, and it's not that easy to find Michelin maps, but I did find out that I have Microsoft Encarta World Atlas on CD, and it is pretty detailed and has some pretty good search features.

Paul, Annie, thanks for the help in verifying/correcting these names.

Bob, thanks for the suggestion, but relative to all the other towns listed, Bavincourt seems a bit too far north. Actually here is how he wrote the name (it's split between two lines):

The only other thing I could think of is that it is a phonetic spelling of Bouzincourt? Seems to be the only name that looks like "basincourt" in the area.

Also, after looking closely at "hernicourt", I'm now pretty sure that it is Herissart spelled by him as "Herresart". Here's "Naours, Flessells,Herresart"

Again, thanks for the help. After finding this document, and this forum, it has rekindled an interest in finding out about my grandfather's service in the war.

Glenn

[Bob Coulson]

Glenn,

How about Bayencourt, possible.??

Bob.

[glennaa]

I did a google search on "Basincourt Somme", and it comes up with the name of a bagpipe march:

"The 8th Argyll's Farewell to the 116th Regiment at Basincourt"

Could it possibly be a town that was destroyed in the war?

Glenn

[Annie]

There is a bridge of Bazincourt in (or near) Peronne.

?

I shall make researchs tomorrow.

Annie

[Annie]

N-NW of Albert: Bouzincourt (about 3,5 kms), Senlis-le-Sec (5 kms), Varennes (10 kms)

N of Albert: Martinsart ( 5 kms)

W of Albert: Hérissart (20 kms)

N of Amiens: Flesselles (10 kms), Naours (15 kms)

Annie

[glennaa]

Again, thanks for the help. I'm still confused about some of this, though, as I can't really find Basincourt, and Beaucourt seems to be on the German side of the line (map on page 46 of The Somme by Lyn Macdonald), so I don't think it would have been an English "rest" area from the trenches - and he was wounded and evacuated early July 1916.

Unfortunately I don't know how long after the War my grandfather wrote this; maybe he was giving village names he remembered long after the fact.

Glenn