Noyelles-sur-Mer is an unremarkable village with a remarkable World War II graveyard. Situated at the mouth of the River Somme, Noyelles was the headquarters of the Chinese Labour Corps during World War I, which explains why its cemetery contains almost as many graves as the village has inhabitants.

It may be a surprise to find the graves of so many non-combatants so far from home, but even more surprising is that over half of the 841 men buried at Noyelles died after Armistice Day. From Sung Hsi P’eng who died on November 11, 1918, to Ch’iu Hsiu Feng, who passed away on March 23,1920, more than 450 labourers died when the fighting was well and truly over. So-called Spanish Flu did for some of them, but at least as deadly was what was euphemistically known as “battlefield clearance”. In accident after accident, Chinese labourers who had survived the war years were blown into an early grave while clearing unexploded ordnance.