An aerial view of Cordonnerie Farm, British map reference 36.N.10. The heavily shelled farm ...

An aerial view of Cordonnerie Farm, British map reference 36.N.10. The heavily shelled farm house is just above the British frontline trenches and inside a reverse L shaped road that touches the right hand edge of the photograph. The German frontline trenches are across the bottom third of this photograph and the distinctive bends of the Rue Delvas (road) are seen on the bottom left of the photograph. In no man's land around the heavily shelled Cordonnerie Salient, the prominent part of the British frontline protruding toward the German frontline, are a number of large craters the result of British and German tunnelling under the respective frontlines and the subsequent detonation of large mines. The frontline trenches of the salient have been heavily shelled and much of the breastwork badly damaged, probably from the German shelling at the end of May 1916, and help date this photograph to probably early June 1916. See G01534BD for another aerial photograph of Cordonnerie Farm taken at about the same time but the shell damage is slightly out of focus. This part of the British frontline in front of Armentieres was held at this time by I Anzac Corps and is where Australians first saw action in France. One of a series of 62 photographs acquired by C.E.W. Bean from a number of sources in the 1920s. None were taken by Bean, but acquired to augment his own photographs. All were registered in his personal (C.B.) series and carry a C.B. number. All were subsequently registered in the AWM G Series under one accession number, G01534, and use a series of alphabetic extensions, commencing with G01534A, to accommodate the 62 items.