Heilly Station Cemetery.

We know that the 36th Casualty Clearing Station was set up in Heilly on 1st March 1916. At that time, it consisted of tents pitched near the station, to the south of the railway line. The captain who kept the unit’s diary notes that the camp measured 165 metres by 70 metres, or 11,500 square metres – the same size as the Licorne football pitch in Amiens. The location was ideal in the run-up to the Battle of the Somme, as Heilly station lay on the Albert–Corbie railway line, which was heavily used to evacuate the wounded to hospitals.

The cemetery, meanwhile, opened in May 1916. The first burial was that of John Westcott Solomon of the 25th Field Ambulance (Royal Army Medical Corps), who died on 26 May 1916.

The ‘Heilly Station Cemetery’ is the largest military cemetery in the Val de Somme. Nearly 3,000 men are buried here.

1st July marked a turning point for the 36th CCS. Treating the wounded became its primary mission. The assault on the Somme front began at 7.30 am. Heilly, who was stationed about 12 km from the front, began to see the consequences from midday onwards.
On that day : 1,005 wounded were admitted to the CCS. 270 were evacuated on the first train. A second train evacuated 233 soldiers. With no further trains available, the CCS was closed at nightfall. Lorries were then directed straight to Corbie, resulting in a longer journey for the wounded.