A RECENT PHOTOGRAPH OF THE CITADEL
This picture was taken with the present
day location of the Bois Francais
trenches behind the camera.
Sassoon’s Corporal O’Brien is buried in the CWGC cemetery indicated in the photograph. In nearby plots in that cemetery, are the graves of some 350 Officers and Other Ranks, including those of a Guards officer Member of Parliament (Hon. G.V.Baring) and a General (Brigadier-General Louis Phillpotts).
When Sassoon was here, the valley near the cemetery and the high ground beyond it accommodated medical units and artillery batteries. Later in 1916 when the British advance had moved on, the whole area was given over to a tented camp known as Citadel Camp with a large collection of Army tents somewhat precariously placed on the sides of the hill. To the left of the photograph, beyond the trees on the crest of the ridge was the location of "The Loop", a series of railway sidings where during September 1916, tanks were unloaded from their trucks and then despatched for action at the front. The line at "Loop Station" then continued to Fricourt passing by the CWGC cemetery seen in the photograph.
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